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GOETHE AND BEETHOVEN
ROMAIN ROLLAND
GOETHE
AND
BEETHOVEN
Translated from the French by
G. A. PFISTER and E. S. KEMP
FULLY ILLUSTRATED
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1931
GOETHE AND BEETHOVEN
Copyright, 1931, by Harper &
Brothers. Printed in the United
States of America
FIRST EDITION
B-P
Htfi-i
HID
CON
NTS
TRANSLATOR'S PREFATORY NOTE
PRELUDE
GOETHE AND BEETHOVEN
Chapter I
Chapter II
GOETHE'S SILENCE
GOETHE THE MUSICIAN
BETTINA
xvii
3
39
75
97
161
APPENDICES
I. THE "MARSEILLAISE" IN GERMANY
II. BETTINA'S LETTER ON MUSIC
REFERENCES
191
199
105
1
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m
Vj?%. i» - **h *#*■ ^ aw C Mt * w /*• ^ <l ^ -i^«i .AwrT
ILLUSTRATIONS
I. Goethe, by J. K. Stiegler
~l. Beethoven, by August Kloeber
3. Christiana Goethe, Bust by Weisser (1811)
4. Beethoven, Bust by Franz Klein (i8ii)
5. Mendelssohn as a Child, Drawing by Hensel
6. Goethe, by Ferdinand Jagemann (1817)
7. View of Teplitz (Bohemia)
8. 9, 10. One of three lieder (Opus 83) dedicated by
Beethoven to Goethe (18 10) — Wonne der Wehmut
(The Ecstasy of Grief)
11. Page of Manuscript from Egmont (reduced)
iz, 13. Views of Marienbad, after Prints of the Time
14. Beethoven, a Mask by Franz Klein (1811)
15. Autograph of Goethe. A weekly schedule of the
Hoftheater of Weimar announcing the perform-
ances of Fidelio. (Unpublished collection of Ro-
main Rolland)
16. A Page of the Manuscript of Egmont
17. Zelter, by P. J. Bardon
18. Marianna von Willemer. A pastel (1819)
19. Goethe, Bust by Klauer
io. Goethe, by K. Ch. Vogel von Vogelstein
Facing
page
xvii
XX
6
10
16
IX
x6
3°
3°
34
39
4 1
46
54
53
64
64
VIII ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
xi. Beethoven, by Malher (1814 or 1815) 75
zz. Maria Szymanowska, Lithograph by Harlingue 78
13. Goethe, by C. O. Kipinski 8z
24. Ulrike von Levetzow 86
Z5. Goethe, Mask by Johann Gottfried Schadow (1816) 116
z6. Goethe's Study 12.6
2.j. The Juno Room; Goethe's Home iz6
2.8. View of Weimar, after a Print of the Time 14Z
Z9. Goethe on His Death Bed, Drawing by Friedrich
Preller 151
30. Goethe's Death Chamber 156
31. The Palace of the Ducal Family Where Goethe Was
Often Received 156
3Z. Bettina, after a Portrait of Her as a Young Girl 176
33. Bettina, Drawing by Emil Grimm (Probably about
1807) i8z
LINE DRAWINGS IN THE TEXT
Page
The Springs at Marienbad iii
Goethe's Summer-house at Weimar xvii
Beethoven (About 182.0) Drawing by Tejcek 2.
Goethe's Birthplace at Frankfurt- am-Main 3
Beethoven (1813) Drawing by von Lifer 38
Teplitz. A View of the Park 39
Goethe (18 10) Drawing by Friedr. Wilh. Riemer 74
Goethe's House at Weimar 75
Christiana Goethe, Drawing by Goethe 96
Teplitz. The Entrance to Schlossgarten (The Garden
of the Chateau) 97
Silhouette of Goethe before the Bust of a Dead Friend
(About 1780) 160
Weimar. Chateau Tiefurt. The Summer Residence of
the Court, Often Frequented by Goethe 161
Translator's Prefatory Note
Of the two giants, Goethe and Beethoven, who are
the subject of this book, Beethoven is probably far
better known to the English-speaking public than
Goethe.
There are two reasons for this. Beethoven addresses
the world in the language of music, a universal lan-
guage, which can be understood by many who have
not made even an elementary study of it. There is
hardly a concert-goer in the world who has not heard
Beethoven's symphonies or sonatas, or who has had no
opportunity of feeling the influence of that mighty
composer. The second reason is that there are many
more people who, as amateur or professional musi-
cians, have formed a closer acquaintance with Bee-
thoven than that of mere hearing. They have played
his works, analyzed them, interpreted them, and often
enough, attracted by his work, have enquired into his
life and his psychology. They have found at their
disposal a comprehensive mass of literature, easily
accessible; they have read of him in critical essays
published in the press. And Ernest Newman's excel-
lent translation of Romain Rolland's Beethoven: the
Creator has given those who read it, a deep insight
into the composer's greatness.
Not so with Goethe. To understand and appreciate
him is reserved to the comparatively small community
which has a perfect knowledge of German, for no
translation can do him justice. And those who do not
know any of his works lack the interest which would
prompt them to enquire into the great poet's life,
thought, work, and influence.
Yet Goethe, the Olympian, as he is often called,
was one of the greatest figures in literature which the
world has known. He ranks with Homer, Virgil,
Dante, and Shakespeare. Like these he belongs to the
world rather than to a particular nation or race. He
is, in literature, what Michelangelo and Raphael were
in the realm of art, a sovereign master.
And, just as Michelangelo was supreme in every
branch of his gteat art — painting, frescoes and archi-
tecture — so did Goethe excel in all that belongs to
literature, from the short epigtam, the sonnet, and the
Lied, through the ballad and the descriptive poem to
that mighty work Faust which has only one equal,
Dante's Divina Comedia. For Faust is not only a poem
of gteat beauty and a dtamatic wotk of magnificent
consttuction, but a deep psychological study of man
and human natuie. Goethe's dramatic works are
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^= XI
equally great. From comedy, even farcical comedy, to
great tragedies, such as, apart from himself, only
Shakespeare has given to the world, he mastered every
conceivable form. And in prose writing — romance,
travel description, etc. — he was as great and as pro-
found as he was in verse and drama.
Nor is that all. Goethe, who was not only a genius
in literature, but a universal genius, perhaps the last of
the few to whom this title may justly be given, was
also a philosopher, a diplomat, a statesman, a scientist,
an architect, and, as this book shows, a musician. And
in all these realms he was a creator of the highest
standard. His civil code, his works on colours, on
botany (he was a forerunner of Darwin) made his-
tory. He was also more than an amateur in the art of
painting.
In this respect, then, Goethe was more eminent than
even Dante, who, like Leonardo da Vinci and Michel-
angelo, had mastered several branches of knowledge
and art. And in this he surpassed Shakespeare, too.
Goethe's striking personality, both as a poet and as
a man, could not fail to attract many women who, in
their turn, inspired him to some of his finest work.
Many of them — though by no means all — are men-
tioned in this book. They were of the most varying
types: Friederike, the pastor of Sesenheim's charming
XII ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
child; Frau von Stein, the beautiful and highly intel-
lectual aristocrat; and Christiana, the fat, red-faced,
uneducated housekeeper, whom he finally married.
The procession of women extended throughout his
long life, from youth to old age, when, a widower of
seventy-nine, he wanted to marry a girl of nineteen
with whom he had fallen in love.
But among all these there was none upon whom
Goethe had such a lasting influence, none whose in-
fluence upon Goethe was more durable, and none, per-
haps, who understood the poet better than Bettina von
Arnim-Brentano, the writer, musician, and champion
of political freedom, the great dreamer and great
lover.
If Bettina had a deep insight into Goethe's gigantic
mind, she had an equally clear understanding of one
who was his peer as no other, Beethoven. It was she
who formed the link between these two, influencing
the poet, championing the composer, appreciating both
with a clairvoyance such as probably no other of their
contemporaries has shown. To her also a great part of
the present book is devoted.
Romain Rolland tells us of many occasions on which
Goethe, after arduous planning and working, aban-
doned what he had set out to do. We read of failure,
defeat, and wasted time and energy. This only shows
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ XIII
that the great man's colossal work did not exhaust the
still vaster possibilities of his creative mind. Fate was
kind to him in many ways, but he had nevertheless a
fair share of trials and disappointments. Had he been
granted the fulfilment of all that he conceived and
undertook, then indeed he would have been the king
amongst supermen.
Romain Rolland's work, Goethe and Beethoven,
will, it is hoped, be appreciated for the new light
which it throws upon the relations of the two masters.
It should prove also an inspiration to a wider and
keener knowledge of two of the greatest men the
world has ever known.
G. A. P.
E. S. K.
Note of Acknowledgments
The author and the publishers hereby extend thanks
to all those who have assisted in the preparation of this
volume. As in the case of Beethoven: the Creator,
we have everywhere encountered the greatest spirit of
cooperation, the most efficient aid.
We take pleasure in expressing our gratitude
To professor Max Hecker, Director of the Goethe
and Schiller Archives of Weimar, who has given us
permission to reproduce one of the three Lieder dedi-
cated by Beethoven to Goethe;
To Professor Johannes Wolf, Director of the Prus-
sian State Library of Berlin, who entrusted to us, for
purposes of reproduction, two pages of the manuscript
of Egmont;
To the Director of the Frankfurt Museum, from
whom we obtained the little known portrait of Bettina
as a girl.
We owe a special vote of thanks to Professor Anton
Kippenberg, the eminent Director of the Insel-Verlag,
who has more than once given us the benefit of his
valuable advice and has allowed us to reproduce several
items from his private collection, among them: the
XVI ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
letter from Beethoven to Zelter, the views of Weimar,
Teplitz and Marienbad which illustrate this volume,
the portrait of Goethe by C. O. Kipinsky, the sketch of
Goethe on his deathbed by Friedrich Preller, etc.
We are indebted also to Dr. Eugen Rentsch, Director
of the Rotapfel-Verlag, and to Professor Max Fried-
laender, the eminent historian and musicologist, who
have shown a ready willingness to assist us.
To all of them our sincere thanks.
PRELUDE
I have compared the writing of my book, Beethoven:
the Creator ■, to a journey to the depths of Cyclops'
smithy. When an old man like myself, who can count
more than sixty years, embarks on travels as laborious
as these, prudence suggests that he should not linger
by the way, but make straight for the goal.
On the other hand, the journey's end never con-
cerns me very much: it is the road which interests me
if only it lie in the right direction. I never hurry.
Poor creature that I am, existing since childhood's days
under the ever-present threat of a life to be cut short,
I have always lived as if a hundred years were my
span — or as if I must die tomorrow. It matters little
to me. The essential thing is the completion of the
task to which my hand is set.
XVIII ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
On my Beethoven exploration, many a wayfarer
has stopped me on the way; he has much to tell me
and my ears are always open: I was born to be the
confidant both of the living and of the dead. . . .
Here are two whose lives were entwined with Bee-
thoven's. One is Bettina, wild yet wise, a dreamer all
her life; yet the eyes of the sleep-walker beheld Bee-
thoven and Holderlin, the men of genius whom their
keenest contemporaries disowned. It was Bettina who
foresaw the great revolutions. The other is Goethe,
the teacher and comrade of every day of my life. In
his works without number I have sought constant
counsel since I was thirty years old, just as in the
old days, when the shadows lengthened and the mind
turned to its secrets, men used to open the family
Bible. (You remember Faust, silent and meditative,
in the twilight of his chamber.)
Goethe has never sent me away thirsty, or depressed
me with long-dead principles. His were no abstract
ideas, no a priori notions; he poured out a stream of
lively and novel experiences, nature's spring, in which
my youth was renewed. They are but few, even among
the men of genius, whose souls commune unceasingly
with the Spirit of the Earth, the Erdgeist. Goethe and
Beethoven were two of the chosen of the Great
Mother. But the one, he who was deaf, hearkened
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ XIX
without understanding to the call from the depths,
while the other beheld all, but heard part only. Bet-
tina accompanies the two; intoxicated with dreamy
visions and with love, she sees and hears nothing,
groping for the path, stretching out her feverish
fingers into the darkness.
To the readers of my Beethoven I offer this respite
in my Odyssey upon what I have called that inner sea
of Beethoven, begging them to rest awhile with me
as Odysseus did in the land of Alcinous.
In these hurried times I love to breathe quietly as
I lie outstretched in the valley of Villeneuve,* my
hands clasped under my head, beneath the flowering
cherry trees, on a day of the new-born spring. I gaze
upon the vault of heaven and the changeless course
of the centuries. ... I recall talks in the Bohemian
forest, Teplitz, the twin deities Goethe and Beethoven,
and the love-lorn elegy of Bettina, "Nina, love's mad-
dened victim."
Four essays compose this book. The first and the
longest was once published in the review Euro pa; I
have revised and completed it. The three others deal
with the same subject, but present it from other points
of view. Goethe's life was like an arrow shot from a
* Translator's Note — Romain Rolland's villa is at Villeneuve, Switzerland.
XX ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
bow, which, once loosed, cannot be stayed in its flight
to the ever receding target. The problem of that life
is so vast even now, a hundred years after his death,
and remains so fresh and vital, that truth, as I think,
invites me to retain the freedom of presentment which
I have displayed in these independent studies. In this
way alone can I hope to follow the wonderful plas-
ticity of the great model.
Music, I repeat, is the heroine of my story. I present
her here not only as the companion of Beethoven-
Dionysus, but as a Muse also; to Goethe, the Apollo
of Weimar, she is not the least beloved of the Muses,
a fact too little known. The main object of my book
is to remind my hearers that the greatest poet of mod-
ern Europe belongs also to the fellowship of musi-
cians. He is the river into which the twain converge,
into which flow the twin streams of poetry and music,
as do indeed all the streams of our Earth.
April 15th, 1930 Romain Rolland
GOETHE AND BEETHOVEN
CHAPTER I
BEETHOVEN (ABOUT 1820)
DRAWING BY MA1TIN TIJCEK
1811, 1812. ... Autumn, the bountiful, with her
vintage. The golden hues of the forest, the blazing
sunset sky. The last days of love's autumnal splen-
dour. 1 And the brief encounter of the two suns, Bee-
thoven and Goethe. For centuries destiny had been
shaping the converging course of these two planets
of poetry and music. The meeting was soon over;
the hour which had struck was quickly past. They
met, they parted to follow each his course. Must we
wait a thousand years yet for such another meeting?
Happy were the eyes which beheld them. I look into
these eyes to fathom the scenes that dwell there. In
the bosom of the lake the reflection of parting day may
yet be seen.
Though separated, they had long known each other.
But their knowledge was not equal; it was Beethoven
who knew the other better.
From his earliest days he had steeped his mind in
Goethe's works. He worshipped him, 2 he read Goethe
every day. Goethe had taken the place which Klop-
stock had once filled in his heart.
"Klopstock always prays for death, and indeed he
died soon enough, but Goethe lives and we must all
live with him. That is why he is so easy to set to
music. No writer may be set to music so readily." 3
In his first conversation with Bettina in May, 1810,
he had told her how much Goethe's poems fascinated
him, "not only by their contents, but also by their
rhythm. This language, composed after the noblest
design, like an edifice erected by spirit hands, drives
me, exalts me to write music. The secret of the har-
monies is engrafted in it."
Bettina finds him aflame with the fire of inspiration
which gave to the world two Goethe Lieder, and what
Liederl What music! Trocknet nicht, Thranen! ("Dry
not, oh tears") and Mignon.
During the same year he wrote the music to Eg-
mont y and since 1808 he had been thinking of setting
Faust to music.
"To set to music" a poem was not for him, as for
most composers, a labour of representation, a pic-
turesque commentary on the words of the poem. It
was a deep penetration of the verse, an intimate in-
termingling, as it were, of body and soul. It has not
been sufficiently recognized that his words on the pur-
suit of melody, as reported by Bettina, refer actually
to his attempts to fathom those of Goethe's thoughts
which he desired to fuse with music.
"I must set myself therefore at the very focal point
of enthusiasm; thence shall mighty discharges of mel-
ody flash forth far and near 5 (Da muss ich denn von
dem Brennpunkt der Begeisterung die Melodie nach
alien Seiten ausladen).
"Melody! I pursue her, I clasp her with new fire, she
slips from me, is lost in the midst of vague impressions.
Soon, driven by surging passions, I seize her again. I
cannot loose myself from her, I must perpetuate her in
a spasm of ecstasy with every urge of soul and body.
And then, at the last, I triumph over her, I possess her
whom I have pursued, for whom I have longed. And,
behold — a symphony. . . . Yes, music is in very truth
the mediator between the life of the senses and the life
of the spirit (J a, Musik ist so recht die V ermittelung
des geistigen Lebens zum Sinnlichen). I long to talk
of this to Goethe. Would he understand me?"
He declares "Melody is the sensual life of poetry
(Melodie ist das sinnliche Leben der Poesie). Is it
not through melody that the indwelling spirit of the
poem permeates our being? Does not the melody of
Mignon convey to us the whole sensual atmosphere
(Stimmung) of the Lied? 6 And since our senses have
responded to this impression, do they not react to it,
are they not fired with a passion to continue their
creative work?" . . .
Here Bettina attributes to Beethoven the intuition
of a musical subconsciousness a thousand times deeper
and vaster than the thought expressed by these words,
stamping him thus as a forerunner of Schopenhauer
and Wagner.
He turns again to Goethe, and his appeal becomes
more insistent:
"Speak to Goethe of me; tell him that he must hear
my symphonies! He will agree with me that music is
the single, the immaterial entry into a higher world
of knowledge which envelops man but which he can-
not understand. . . . What the soul receives from
music through the senses is spiritual revelation incar-
nate. ... It is thus, if you understand me, that you
must write of me to Goethe! . . . With all my heart
I long for him to teach me."
But here, before resuming our way, we must stay a
moment, and weigh the value of Bettina's testimony.
Although I cannot in this essay attempt to solve the
enigma of this extraordinary woman, of whom I shall
try to give a more detailed account elsewhere, 7 I must
sketch for the reader an outline at least of the basic
facts of the problem, and add the conclusions which
I have reached.
We are now able to get a clear view of her mind.
Some years ago her authentic correspondence with
Goethe was published. Critical essayists have compared
very carefully the wording of these letters. 8 In spite of
gaps due to the disappearance of important letters, it is
possible for us today, especially as to the period which
concerns us, definitely to sift certainties from possi-
bilities, possibilities from errors or inventions. The
enigma of Bettina then no longer exists save for those
who fail to understand the soul of women, or who
lack the gift of that sympathy without which the doors
of intelligence can never open.
No, she was in no way a "Sibyl of the North,"
as some of the modern historians have called the
little Bettina Brentano of 1807 to 1810! When we
describe a character, we must define clearly the period
of which we speak; nothing remains constant during
the course of a life time, least of all with a woman
like Bettina, the slave of her own wild and tender
heart.
8 ^^
Later, the features will alter, age will stamp them
with many a wrinkle, and the youthful smile will lose
its charm. And Goethe's eyes did not look upon her
with the same favour in 1825 as they did in 1807. —
But here we are concerned with the little Mignon, from
her twentieth to her twenty-fifth year. 9
A Mignon she appeared to her intimate friends,
and to Goethe when they first met. And that is hov\ r
she sees herself, as soon as she meets Mignon in Wil-
helm Meister. She identifies herself with the character
of Mignon, with her longing (Sehnsucht), her fate,
"with everything," she says "except with her death";
for the demon of life possessed her.
She is small of stature, with a pale complexion, dark
eyes like deep pools, and a mass of black curls. 10
Usually she wears a long trailing black dress, with
a thick cord round her waist, like a pilgrim; she is
independent of fashion and utterly unable to conform
to the correctitude of polite society; she feels awk-
ward on a chair, and is usually to be found crouching
on a low stool, or perched in a window recess. She
bubbles with life and laughter, or is lost in the deepest
melancholy; she is fundamentally a great dreamer, to
whom life is but a vision.
Young Alois Bihler, who drew this portrait of
Bettina 11 at the moment when she was about to meet
Beethoven, could not sufficiently idolize and admire
this charming girl — the riches of her mind, the bounti-
ful spring of her fancy, her poetical passion, her natu-
ral grace, and the kindness of her heart. She was then
twenty- five, but appeared to be only eighteen, or twenty
at most; there was in her nothing false, nothing mean:
she displayed a generosity without limit, of both mind
and heart, and spontaneity without compare.
1810. . . . It is the year when Goethe, for long very
reserved, is most in love with her, for he, too, has been
unable to resist her charms. 12 It is the year, too, when
she feels nearest to him and loves him utterly. Her
whole existence is permeated with a passion for
Goethe, dazzling and self-sufficing, a passion sealed
with the mystical ring which, at their first meeting, he
had been rash enough to put on her finger. Her letters
of January and February, 1810, show that she was
entirely absorbed in him, like the lovelorn Teresa of
Avila. Nor must we think that Goethe wearied of
this excessive adoration. He lapped it up, as a cat laps
up sweetened milk. Not only does he thank Bettina
for her love (February, 1810), but, having received no
renewed protestations of affection for a whole month,
he becomes uneasy and asks for them (May 10, 1810).
He never parts with Bettina's letters; he takes them
with him on his travels.
10 ^
Now, it is in these circumstances that Bettina meets
Beethoven for the first time. For what reason, unless
at the call of an imperious sincerity, should she have
written to Goethe that she had fallen in love with
Beethoven and that he had vanquished her? Why else
should she passionately have espoused Beethoven's
cause, a course which — as she might well have known,
and in fact did discover later on — was by no means
to Goethe's liking.
Let me first continue the famous story which Bettina
published years later. 13
She had been staying for some time in Vienna with
her brother, Franz Brentano, who had married Toni
Birkenstock. The young couple were both faithful
friends of Beethoven and kept up the noble traditions
of art and learning of father-in-law Birkenstock, the
friend of Franklin and Robertson. It was the month
of May, a beautiful May, aflame with sunshine; Bet-
tina's letters to Goethe are full of the splendour of
gardens in flower, of the overpowering fragrance of
the glass houses all open to the air. 14
Bettina had heard one of Beethoven's sonatas which
had overwhelmed her; 15 she longs to meet the com-
poser. Everybody tries to dissuade her. Beethoven, they
say, is unapproachable; no one even knows where he
lives. Bettina, more than ever determined, takes the
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risk. She finds the house; she enters. 16 He is seated at
the piano and does not see her. She bends over him,
whispering into his ear, "I am Betty Brentano." He
turns round suddenly and sees this pretty girl with
wide-open eyes which pierce his very thoughts; he notes
her intense sympathy, her burning cheeks, when he sings
to her "Kennst du das Land" her throbbing soul, her
fervent enthusiasm. How could he have resisted her?
She was equally captivated. In fact much more so
than he.
"When 1 saw him, I forgot the whole world.
When I remember our meeting, the world van-
ishes, . . . vanishes. . . . "
She is so possessed by Beethoven that this giant, with
his terrible loneliness, has become part of her; she
shares the desert with him, and when the hot wind
sears her she seeks refuge in the gentle affection and
the fatherly tenderness of Goethe. Psycho-analysts
should study the whole beginning of this letter to
Goethe (in the Briefwechsel of 1835). It contains in-
deed a striking "mediumistic" phenomenon. Bettina's
mind was one peculiarly susceptible to the electric 11
waves of other minds heavily charged with genius. The
word electricity recurs often in her conversation with
Beethoven.
12 =
Now she was fortunate in surprising Beethoven in
the throes of a passionate crisis, in the grip of a creative
trance, a "raptus," as he called it next day when she
reminded him of what he had said. 18
These conversations became the rule, for Beethoven,
fascinated, would not let Bettina go, accompanied her
to the Brentanos' house, took her for walks; Bettina,
enraptured too, forgot everybody and everything but
Beethoven — "Society, the picture galleries, the the-
atres, and even the spire of St. Stephen's Cathe-
dral. ..." Their discussions were on serious matters,
a fact which later on Schindler doubted on the some-
what puerile ground that Beethoven had never men-
tioned it to him. But Schindler was not Bettina. When
Beethoven, in his old age, addressed him, what he saw
was the gloomy, obsequious face of his famulus, whose
invariable complaint was, "It's raining." 19 Famuli do
not inspire poets; they must be content with prose!
However, I am reserving the discussion of those of
Beethoven's thoughts which Bettina reports, to another
essay dealing more particularly with music. What con-
cerns us here, in our history of the relations between
Goethe and Beethoven, is whether the facts are true
and Bettina's impressions sincere. There is no room
for doubt either of the one or of the other. Apart
from Bettina's letters to Goethe (in the Briefwechsel
= 13
of 1835) and to Prince Hermann von PUckler-Muskau,
the text of which can be questioned because they were
published so much later, the letter to young Alois
Bihler, of July 9, 1810, which is undoubtedly authen-
tic, establishes the truth of her meeting with Beethoven
and the shattering impressions which he made on her.
He was extremely ugly, and this struck Bettina, who
loved beauty above everything, more than any other
woman; she could never really love Beethoven. Never-
theless, she was fascinated from the first moment, and
remained so to the end — tf lch habe diesen Mann un-
endlich lieb gewonnen" ("I have become infinitely
fond of this man").
What conquered her was the sublime greatness
(Herrlichkezt), the unequalled sincerity (Wahrheit),
of Beethoven, as expressed in his art. Moreover, she
was attracted by his naive attitude towards life, his
complete defencelessness. The way in which people
treated him revolted her. From that moment she de-
voted herself to his cause; 20 we shall see how loyally
she defended him, even against those whose prejudices
it would have been to her interest to overlook.
That she conquered Beethoven is equally certain.
Her letter to Bihler tells us how assiduously Beethoven
sought her company. During his last days in Vienna
he never left her, he could not part from her, and
14 ^=
when he had to go he begged her to write to him at
least once a month, because he had no other friend.
Beethoven's authentic letter to Bettina, dated Febru-
ary 10, 18 ll, 21 tells us that she had written to him on
two occasions and that Beethoven had carried these
letters on his person during the whole summer, that
he had been delighted with them, and that, in spirit,
he had written her a thousand letters. He expresses his
love, he sends kisses, and probably writes in much
stronger terms than he would care to confess. That
this man, immured from the world, living at that time
in a state of artistic trance, blind, deaf, and insensible
to all that was outside, intoxicated with the harmonies
which filled his soul, 22 with the passionate communion
which he held with the god within him, like one of
the prophets of the Sistine* — that this damned-up tor-
rent, suddenly finding an outlet, should have poured
forth without restraint all the thoughts which were
choking him, is in itself overwhelming evidence of
his affection.
And now Bettina is to transmit to Goethe these
thoughts of Beethoven. This point, too, is confirmed
to us by evidence, although the circumstances were not
quite as she told them.
* Translator's Note. — On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michel-
angelo painted his famous fresco showing the prophets of the Old Testa-
ment in the attitude of passionate oration.
= 15
When in 1834-35 Bettina published her Brief-
wechsel, she did not trouble about literal precision, and
made no claim to it. After Goethe's death she had
secured through Councillor von Miiller the return of
her letters written to the master. These she now pub-
lished, but not in the disorder of style and thought of
the originals.
She rewrote them and condensed several into one.
And more, she completed them with her recollections
of conversations she had had, using, perhaps, notes
which she had made at the time, according to the cus-
tom of the day. We may be sure that she had often
thought over her conversations with Beethoven, which,
as we shall see, frequently puzzled her, and which
she fully understood only many years later. She had
no intention, in acting thus, to treat the truth lightly;
on the contrary, she desired to express it more fully
and more worthily on behalf of those whose memory
she wished to serve. Having thus recast the letters,
she gave them an approximate date, I might almost
say a synthetic date, because one letter often covers
correspondence and conversations extending over sev-
eral months. The value to the historian of the Brief-
wechsel is in effect the value of Bettina's admitted
powers of seeing, hearing, and understanding, pow-
ers which include a wise estimate as to how far it
16 ^
may be in her interest — she is quite unconscious of
this — to speak the naked truth or to embellish it.
This must be borne in mind as each letter is read.
Whenever Goethe alone is the subject, it is advisable,
no doubt, to remember Bettina's lovelorn tendency to
idealize him, and to mingle her own life with that of
her idol.
This, however, does not apply to Beethoven.
On the contrary, Bettina's worship of Goethe should
have prompted her to neglect Beethoven, to avoid hurt-
ing Goethe, who, on this particular occasion, is of sec-
ondary importance to her. But she does nothing of the
kind. Bettina battles bravely and passionately for
Beethoven against everybody. Nothing in her whole
life does her greater honour. It is only when we see her
thus at close range that we discover the depth of her
loyalty, in contrast with her superficial shortcomings,
and appreciate the instinct of justice which in her is
even stronger than the claims of love. 24
In her Briefwechsel of 1835, Bettina publishes a let-
ter which she is supposed to have written to Goethe on
May 28, 1810, immediately after her first meetings
with Beethoven, a letter glowing with the flame of his
fiery words.
It is probable that she wrote down her thoughts every
evening when she was alone after these memorable
P Wl II III! I
;■ • M
■m
' &
= 17
meetings. For we see how, for months afterwards, she
is troubled by them; they had caused a revolution in
her mind. It is even possible that the rough notes of
what had been said were shown to Beethoven, who,
surprised when he read, in a quiet moment, the con-
fidences uttered in an hour of abandon, is said to have
exclaimed: "What? I said that? I? I must have been
carried away!" But, in fact, the letter to Goethe was
written only at the beginning of July, after Bettina had
left Vienna and while she was enjoying, in her country
home at Bukowan, a quiet time in which to recall the
great memories of the month of May.
How deep and lasting had been the shock which
Beethoven's advent had caused is shown by a little
incident. In June, her brother Clemens came to join
her with his friend, young Arnim. The latter, who felt
sure that she returned his affection, found her distant
and absorbed in thought. She told him that she meant
to devote her life to the great cause of the time, to
music ("Hzngeben zu grossen Z wee ken der Zeit, an
Musik" ) . And when Arnim left, deeply distressed, and
begged her in his letters to return his love, Bettina
replied, affectionately and sincerely, that she would
like to make him happy, but that she could not read
clearly what was in her heart. Already in 1809 she had
vaguely hinted to Arnim how fascinated she was by
18 =
music ( "die Fesseln die mir die Musik anlegt"). The
meetings with Beethoven had strenghtened these
bonds; opposing forces were at work within her.
On July 7th she began a long letter to Goethe, only
to interrupt it twice; she continued it on the 13th, then
on the 28th; she tried to pour into it the tide of feeling
which had accumulated during the last three months.
One feels that it obsessed her and that she could not
free herself from her reflective mood. 25
She put off time after time the moment when she
was to utter what concerned her most. ... At last she
made up her mind, and began the account of her meet-
ing with Beethoven. The words she used are the same
as those which she employed at the opening of her
imaginary letter published in 1835. In the latter she
omitted some redundances. In the original letter she
also insisted more on the common love for Goethe
which had brought her closer to Beethoven. Her
scheme is clear; in order to persuade Goethe to listen
to her, she introduced Beethoven under the banner of
Goethe. . . . Behold him! Bettina's heart is full to the
brim; it is overflowing:
"And now, watch!" ("Jetzt, giebt Achtl") I am
going to tell you of Beethoven: ( fr An dies em geht die
ganze Welt auf und nieder wie . . .") 20 ("The whole
world rises and falls around him, as . . .").
= 19
And with these mysterious words the letter abruptly
ended; the sentence was left unfinished. Bettina could
not continue. . . . It was impossible. . . . She had too
mrch to say. . . .
Goethe, then at Karlsbad, wrote, on July 22nd, to
his wife that he had received a short note from Bettina,
without date or address, informing him that she would
either come to Weimar in the near future or write him
a long letter. Bettina, who had felt how very difficult
it was to express in writing to Goethe the overwhelm-
ing emotion which the discovery of Beethoven had
roused in her, and who, no doubt, had written more
than one letter, only to destroy it again, left her con-
fession to the next meeting. It would be easier to speak
than to write it.
This meeting took place sooner than either Bettina
or Goethe expected. It so happened that while Goethe
was summoned to Teplitz by his grand duke, Bettina,
on her way to Berlin by way of Prague, passed through
Teplitz, heard that Goethe was there, and hurried to
meet him. In two days, two beautiful days of happy
intimacy, August 10 and 11, 1810, she poured out at
last in full flood the revelation which had enriched her
life, which had shaken it to the depths.
"She has talked to me endlessly," writes Goethe, "of
20 ^
her adventures old and new" (J f Sie hat mir unendliches
erzahlt von alten und neuen Abenteuern").
The new adventures were her meeting with Bee-
thoven. Goethe avoids mentioning his name; he refuses
to attach importance to Bettina's enthusiasm. What was
his opinion of Beethoven? He thought very little of
him at that time, 27 and, as we shall see, not much good,
either. But at that moment he was too much taken with
the charms of the pretty girl to stop her flow of narra-
tive. He was watching her lips, without listening to
the words.
"Bettina was really prettier and more charming than
ever" (^'Bettina war wirklich hubscher und Uebenswur-
diger wie sonst"). So he writes very foolishly the day
after her departure, to his jealous Christiana, who
never forgot it.
He was not listening, and yet he heard. . . . What
was Bettina saying?
She was telling him what she wrote later on in her
imaginary letter of 1835. This was not an exact account
of her first visit to Beethoven, but of all her visits com-
bined, all the days they spent together, all the walks,
the reflections, and the overwhelming impression made
on her by this great man; distance lent him an added
stature in her mind and vivid recollections crowned
him, as it were, with a halo.
= 21
I have no reason whatever to doubt the material
accuracy and the moral certainty of her impressions,
though the words which she attributed to Beethoven
in her version of 1835 are probably not literally
reported.
Bettina's burning imagination has probably gilded
the picture, and the artistic gifts natural to her were
no doubt responsible for its composition. But her pic-
ture of Beethoven is as true as that famous painting
by Claude Lorrain of the Roman Campagna. Scrupu-
lous realism could not reproduce more faithfully the
plains of Rome and the brilliance of the light. Thus
with the Beethoven whom Bettina saw and painted.
No other eye has fathomed the depth of his genius so
deeply as hers; feminine intuition absorbed his secret
thoughts even before Beethoven himself had a clear
conception of them. 28 It is a plunge into the fiery
furnace of the Cyclops. Bettina listened, just as
Beethoven spoke, in a raptus, and that is why she per-
ceived what ponderous intellectuals, who know noth-
ing of the lightning which illumines the soul, are
unable to grasp.
Goethe, however, knew this lightning and did not
appreciate it, he realized its danger, and preferred a
horizon free from it. What, then, did Goethe think?
Interested, but rather at a loss, he refused to take very
22 =
seriously what he called later on Bettina's (e Wunder-
Uche Grillen" ("Strange whims"). 29 But his ever alert
psychological curiosity was at the same time attracted
and repulsed, by these "problematical characteristics,
all the more so because they are so difficult to define
and to decipher." 30 He was struck by the extraordinary
figure conjured up by Bettina; later we shall see this
from the haste, so unusual in him, with which he went
to see Beethoven at Teplitz. Goethe probably never
wrote, and for good reasons, the letter of June 6th,
which Bettina attributes to him, 81 and which would
have been written soon after she left. It must be added
that, not content with their long conversations, she left
with him a lengthy written account, and sent him, three
days later, yet another letter, even more ardent than
those which preceded it. Goethe replied on August
17th, expressing both the surprise and the joy which he
derived from these pages which she had given him and
which he read over and over again. "And now comes
your last letter which surpasses all the others. . . ."
Never before had Bettina made a stronger impression
upon Goethe. 32 Never before had he formed a higher
conception of her mental capacity; and as, in his genial
egoism, he was apt to judge other people by the value
of the spiritual booty which they brought him, he im-
mediately bore witness to the high esteem which he had
=23
conceived for her, by associating her with his own
work.
At that time, then, Beethoven would have been very
near to forcing an entrance into Goethe's intellectual
sympathy, had not a third person been present at these
conversations who counteracted Bettina's efforts, Zelter.
We know of the solid friendship which bound
Goethe to this clumsy artisan of music, this good fel-
low, sound musician, perfect Philistine, and faithful
Achates to his JEneas. No other bonds proved more
durable than this friendship. It has its noble side; but
a deplorable law governing genius seems to decree that,
with the superior mind, a strong dose of mediocrity in
the other is required to satisfy the needs of friendship.
A genius will form only a passing friendship with his
peers. After Schiller's death the circle in which Goethe
lived was, almost without exception, astonishingly bar-
ren; it comprised provincial bourgeois twenty years
behind their time, dense, narrow, and warped. Young
people who called on him were often scandalized at
this. In his band of workmen, whose devotion was
unshakable, Zelter was, and remained to the end, the
foreman, the sole oracle on the subject of music. It was
on his sincere and obtuse lack of understanding that
Goethe passively relied in deciding what to admire and
what to reject.
24 =
What then, did his Zelter tell him of Beethoven? 34
November 12, 1808. . . . "With admiration and
awe we behold will-o'-the-wisps on the horizon of
Parnassus, talents of the greatest significance, like Bee-
thoven's, using the club of Hercules to kill flies. At first
we are surprised, then we shrug our shoulders at the
sight of this display of talent, employed to invest trivial
things with importance."
A little later 35 he became more virulent. Speaking
of Beethoven's works, he was not content to refer to
them as monsters "whose father might be a woman,
or whose mother might be a man"; he suspected them
of being immoral. Christ on the Mount of Olives,
which, no doubt, is not a great work, but which cer-
tainly does not deserve this clamour of outraged
modesty, he considered to be "an unclean work (Un-
keuschheit) the reason and the end of which is ever-
lasting death. I know," he continues, "music-lovers
who used to show alarm, or even indignation, on hear-
ing these works; now, however, they are roused by
them to an enthusiasm which is akin to that of the
devotees of Greek sexual perversion. . . ." (J r Wie die
Anhanger der griechischen Lie be").
The art of the chaste and virile Beethoven accused
of immodesty and sexual perversion! It might be called
a malevolent and foolish joke! It would be laughable,
= 25
if we did not remember into whose ears this poison was
poured, though by a hand which we must admit to be
without malice, as Zelter himself proved later. . . .
"Unbalanced, monstrous, immodest, perverted Art:" in
ten lines Zelter found everything which could erect an
everlasting barrier between Goethe and Beethoven.
Bettina, then, met Zelter at Goethe's house on the
evening of August 11, 1810, at Teplitz. We can
imagine the unkind remarks, the scoffing, the clumsy
arguments, the rough-and-ready words with which
Zelter commented on the mystic-musical flights of Bet-
tina. The little cat arched her back and spat at the
growling cur from Berlin. Goethe, in a short note of
August 13th in which he praised Bettina's charm, says:
"But towards other people she is very rude" (J'Aber
gegen and ere Menschen sehr unartig").
When Bettina left Teplitz she took with her a solid
hatred of Zelter. She ruminated over it the whole
winter. In this, again, she showed her loyalty. She
knew perfectly well that it was dangerous to attack
Zelter's influence on Goethe, that it was labour lost,
and that she risked the forfeiture of her idol's good
will. Nevertheless, she refused to forgive this "Philis-
tine," as she called him, his gross and malevolent lack
of understanding of Beethoven. When she met him
again in Berlin, where poor Arnim was ill advised
26 ^
enough to recommend Zelter to her as a teacher of
harmony, and was snubbed for it, her letters to Goethe
were filled with sarcastic references to the clumsy
pedant "whose bones are so large and whose waistcoat
is so long" V'mit so breiten Knochen, und so lunger
Weste"). She puts them all into the same bag, these
Berlin pedants — Zelter, Reichardt, Rigini, and Him-
mel; they were always quarrelling, always barking at
one another and at the passers-by. Let them bite and
bludgeon one another, but the great men, the glorious
dead and Beethoven, must be left in peace. 88
Goethe frowned. He had hoped that these musical
fancies would be forgotten, like the whims of a pretty
woman. When he found that they were an obsession he
was annoyed. At first he was guarded, for he had need
of Bettina. For the memoirs which he intended to write
he must draw on recollections of his boyhood, and
Bettina had gathered the details from the lips of his
mother during the days which the two women spent
together, hours of delight in which they pictured once
again the sunrise of the young god. Goethe himself,
strange to say, remembered nothing of his youth; his
Frankfurt days were dead. Without the help of her
who had been his mother's youthful confidante, he
could not have described a single incident of his earlier
years. Thus he had to extract from Bettina those treas-
A
*
1'
1 " ' i
j
blBP - * m
d
?m ?il
^
yM |v 9
-^
$
§14 JjLl
i
1
■ t -*\
r
= 27
ures which she had gathered for her own delight. Drop
by drop she distilled them for him, interpolating un-
kind remarks about Zelter, and introducing the nebu-
lous theories of her fevered brain on "music-revela-
tion" and the genius of Beethoven, fancies which are
illumined at times by a lightning flash of inspiration. 87
Goethe had to accept all she gave him. His bad temper
was only revealed by his silence, but his resentment
grew. Some words in his letter of January 11, 1811,
show it:
"On many occasions you are as stubborn as a mule
and especially when you speak of music. In your little
silly head you concoct some extraordinary fancies; how-
ever, I am not going to lecture you or cause you any
pain."
In other words, "You can talk as long as you like;
I shall not honour you by a discussion."
During this winter of 1810-11 Goethe broke with
Bettina. He thought he was the only lord and master
of this fascinating mind, the dual nature of which,
Italian and German-Rhenish (she was the daughter of
his early-beloved Maximiliana La Roche), attracted
him. She had come to him, and it seemed as if she
were his. Now, while reassuring the god of Weimar of
her admiration, she parted company with him in order
to follow the new revelation which had come to her
28 ^=
from Beethoven and to identify herself with the young
romantic movement in Germany!
After long hesitation, Bettina became engaged to
Arnim (December 4, 1810) and married him in the
following spring (March 11th). The letter in which she
informed Goethe of this event, and which was written
two months later (May 11th), is really devoted more
to Goethe than to Arnim; no doubt her sincere affec-
tion for Arnim was a very pale flame compared with
her passion for Goethe, which lasted all her life. But,
unconsciously, Goethe thought himself betrayed, and
smarted under the disappointment. The wound was
above all intellectual. Achim von Arnim, a young
gentleman of letters, was worthy of the highest esteem
both for his talent and for his character; he showed for
Goethe much respect and consideration, which the
elder man appreciated; but in the domain of the intel-
lect Arnim, like Beethoven, with due regard to the
difference between the two, was the enemy. I am
wrong, he was not; it is Goethe who was Arnim's
enemy. The tide of neo-romanticism which was rising
round him troubled and exasperated him. He believed
that the whole edifice of his life was threatened with
destruction. And though the new generation asked
nothing better than to kneel before him, and receive
the accolade of chivalry, he could scarcely hide from
= 29
them his animosity. It broke forth with unrestrained
violence in a letter written in October, 1810, the object
of which was, as a matter of fact, the noble-minded
and innocent Arnim.
"There are moments," Goethe writes, "when they
drive me to distraction. I have to control myself so as
not to be rude to Arnim, who sent me his Countess
Dolores, which I like well. If I had a son gone astray,
I would rather know that he had wandered into
brothels, and even into pigsties, than that he should
lose himself in the bedlam of the present day, for I fear
that from this hell there is no salvation." 39
What do those who always see in Goethe an Olym-
pic figure think of this flow of brutal temper? If we
wish to understand his aversion for his time, let us
think of our own days, of the present crisis in Euro-
pean art, uprooted today as then by a World War and
by social upheavals; let us note the confusion of faked
folly, faked reasoning, faked religion, faked poetry;
let us consider the degradation of the mind which
swings frantically like a pendulum from anarchy to
serfdom, from the excesses of liberty to the excesses of
tyranny! An epoch which, perhaps, in spite of its basic
incoherence and destructive fury, may be pregnant with
greatness, a necessary transition from a dying world to
a world yet to be born. . . . But a man like Goethe,
30 ^=
who knew what it had cost him to establish order in
his art and in his life, could not see all that he had
won in imminent danger or ruined, without a feeling
of disgust. This sentiment was all the stronger because
of his keen insight into the dangers which beset the
German mentality with its chronic lack of balance. He
had felt, too, very deeply the disgrace to which these
excesses inevitably lead.
To preserve, in the face of these revolutions, the
ironic impassivity of a Renan, Goethe would have had
to be a Renan himself, a man who essayed every-
thing, but retained nothing. Goethe, however, was
Goethe, and what he had he held; he left nothing to
the changes and chances of life. A man of peace, he
was always armed.
He is often compared to Phoebus Apollo, a romantic
aspect of him immortalized in the fine bust by Martin
Gottlob Klauer, the sculptor; there are certain traits
in the life and character of the god which he exhibits
in a marked degree. He shows us the god in exile; the
god in solitude; the god who fights the dragon but who
is too proud to proclaim his struggles and the dangers
he has faced ; the god who fights alone and who alone,
as day succeeds day, ascends the path which leads
to the great light.
He was Goethe, the man who rarely laughed, who
.lib — V
. r>
t
= 31
took life and art seriously, slow to forgive those who,
in the lightness of their hearts, would trouble his sense
of order and of harmony.
If, then, the inoffensive Arnim caused him to empty
the vials of his wrath, what of Beethoven?
Goethe was not enough of a musician to see in
Beethoven what we in our day perceive at once and
what Bettina had so cleverly divined, the sovereign
mastery (Herrlichkeit) of his will in matters of art,
over the unfettered elements. He was, however, musi-
cian enough, as was Tolstoi, to perceive the unchaining
of these elements, and to be frightened by it. The rush-
ing of the flood was in his ears, but not the quos ego
of deliverance. Beethoven's dominance of the elements,
even had he realized it, would not perhaps have reas-
sured him on his own account. Let us say plainly that,
on the edge of any abyss, Goethe felt giddy. He con-
sidered Beethoven, gesticulating on the verge, as a
lunatic, a sleep-walker who, sooner or later, would
topple into the depths. He repulsed the hand of the
madman outstretched to clutch him. . . .
I had written these lines before reading the scene
which now follows: it will show that my intuition was
correct.
On the 12th of April, 1811, Beethoven wrote to
Goethe. 40 His letter, touchingly modest, overflowed
32 ^=
with affection and respect. He told Goethe that he
would send him shortly the music to Egmont* 1 and
asked for his opinion:
"Yes, even adverse criticism will benefit me and my
art; I shall be as pleased to receive it as the highest
praise."
It is worth noting that this humble great man,
humble only with Goethe, proud towards all others,
had already sent to Goethe through Bettina, in the
course of the previous year, three admirable Lieder to
words by Goethe, and that the latter had made no
reply. Yet Beethoven, when he wrote again, uttered
not a syllable of impatience or a hint of reproach. He
repeated the offering with the same humility.
The letter was brought to Weimar by Beethoven's
secretary, Franz Oliva, a distinguished and likable
young man, of whom Varnhagen and Rahel have
spoken with much esteem. Goethe invited him to din-
ner on May 4, 1811. After the meal, Oliva sat down at
the piano and played Beethoven. What did Goethe do?
While Oliva was playing, he walked impatiently up
and down the music-room with Boisseree. The latter,
who did not like Beethoven's works, either, amused
himself by looking at Runge's paintings hanging on
the walls, paintings which were indeed by a great
artist whose charm and originality have recently won
= 33
renewed recognition. Goethe, much vexed, said to
Boisseree:
"What! You do not know that? Well, just look at
it! It is enough to make one mad (Zum Rasend-
werden) ! Beautiful and crazy, at the same time!" . . .
"Yes, just like Beethoven's music which that fellow
over there is playing (der da spielt) ." . . .
"Exactly," growls Goethe. ' That' wants to grasp
everything, and 'that' always loses itself in elementary
things, and yet some details are infinitely beautiful. 42
. . . Look!" — and here we do not know whether
he was speaking of Runge or Beethoven, because the
deprecating judgment included both — "What devilish
work (Was fur Teufelszeug)\ . . . And here, again,
what charm (Anmuth) and splendour (Herrlichkeit)
this fellow (Kerl) has produced! But the poor devil
could not keep it up, he is done with already (er ist
schon hiri) . It was bound to happen. People who stand
on seesaws 43 either perish or go crazy (verriickt) ; for
that there is no pardon (da ist keine Gnade)." . . .
For a few moments he remained silent. Then fol-
lowed a fresh explosion:
"You can hardly understand! For us old men it is
maddening (Toll werderi) to have to see all around
us a decaying world, a world returning to its elements
34 ^=
until — God knows when — things will change for the
better!" . . .
It would be difficult to disclose more effectively the
innermost secret of his thought, the hidden tragedy.
This subtle malevolence for Beethoven was really his
vital instinct on the defence, the hatred of one who
feels that what he holds dearest is threatened.
However, he was a man of the world and knew
what good manners demand, what was due to the
advances of a distinguished composer who had shown
him such great respect, what was due also to the in-
sistence of Bettina, who in her letter of May 11th 44
pleaded Beethoven's cause with such warmth. So on
June 25 th he at last replied with a cordial politeness
from Karlsbad. 45 He did justice to Bettina, and pointed
out to Beethoven the value of such an advocate:
"Bettina fully deserves the sympathy which you have
shown the dear girl. She speaks of you with the great-
est admiration and affection. She counts the hours she
spent with you among the happiest of her life."
He will be glad, he continues, to find on his return
the promised Egmont score, and he thinks that he will
be able to have it played at the performances of this
drama the following winter. "Thus I hope to give
great enjoyment both to myself and to your numerous
admirers in our country." He hoped that Beethoven
\>
S
\>
^
\
= 35
would come to see him, as Oliva promised, and advised
him to choose the season when the court and the musi-
cal public would be in town.
"You are sure to find in Weimar a reception worthy
of your great merits. . . . But no one could be more
interested in your visit than I, who beg to express my
most cordial thanks for all the kindness which you
have shown me."
The letter was written then in as affectionate a tone
as Goethe could use towards a musician whom he
knew only by hearsay, 46 and whose art had no great
attraction for him. It seems to me that this was indeed
a great triumph for Bettina.
When, at the end of January, 1812, he at last re-
ceived the music to Egmont, he had it played to him
on the piano by an amateur, Friedrich von Boyne-
burg, 47 several times in the course of the same day.
From this it would appear that he was making an effort
to understand Beethoven; the hope seemed justified
that, in spite of all that separated them, the two men
would join hands in friendly alliance.
But just at that moment a catastrophe occurred.
Beethoven lost his little patroness at Weimar. During
36 ^
the summer of 1811 Goethe suddenly broke off his
relations with Bettina. The Arnims were shown the
door.
And at that fatal hour an evil chance brought Goethe
and Beethoven face to face.
GOETHE AND BEETHOVEN
CHAPTER II
BEETHOVEN (1823)
DRAWING BY VON LIFER
II
Goethe's break with Bettina in September, 1811, was
like a thunderclap out of a cloudless sky. But the storm
had been gathering for a whole year, since Bettina's
visit to Beethoven, and the rebellious enthusiasm which
she consequently displayed.
The newly- wedded Arnims had come to Weimar for
their honeymoon. At first everything went smoothly.
They were to have stayed for a week, and Christiana's
jealousy was smoothed by her assumption that "Be-
dina," 48 now happily married, was no longer dan-
gerous. The young couple were affectionately received;
they were at Goethe's house morning, noon, and
night; they never left him. The first week's stay was
followed by a second, then by a third. The state of
Bettina's health justified, it is true, the extension of
39
40
their visit, but not in the eyes of Goethe, with whose
work it interfered, nor in those of the Frau Geheimrat
("Mrs. Privy Councillor"), who, to her bitter disap-
pointment, soon discovered that Bettina's marriage
made no difference in her spiritual flirtation with the
Geheimrat.* 9 The two women were certainly not born
to understand, or even to tolerate, one another; the
worthy fat Christiana, so simple and so vulgar (with
age and good living she became redder and fatter,
more and more vulgar), and Bettina, delicate and
difficult, with her sentimental fancies and her never-
ending "ideas." Both had ready, lively and uncompro-
mising tongues: both were up in arms in the presence
of the man whom both, for different reasons, consid-
ered their property. They met every day, smiled at each
other, and kissed . . . they would much rather have
bitten each other! The Arnims, like everyone else in
Weimar society, sympathized discreetly with the hen-
pecked great man. Christiana, on the other hand, in-
cited Goethe against the guests who took advantage of
him. The storm broke suddenly while the two women
were visiting a picture-gallery, and a real tornado it
was. Bettina knew something of art and exercised her
wit at the expense of the daubs which were shown.
The organizer of the exhibition was the Hojrat Hein-
rich Meyer, an old friend of Goethe's family, whose
= 41
taste, like that of Zelter and all the old habitues of the
house, was somewhat mildewed. Christiana, therefore,
took the offence as a personal affront; unable to meet
Bettina, who excelled in ironical humour, on her own
ground, the apoplectic lady gave vent to her accumu-
lated wrath in screams and gesticulations. Bettina was
accustomed to adorn her impudent little nose with a
lorgnette or with glasses; they were torn from her,
thrown to the ground and smashed. In the hearing of a
curious crowd, attracted by her cries, the offended wife
forbade her rival, who was struck dumb with surprise,
ever to set foot again in their house. It was a public
scandal. The whole town eagerly supported Bettina.
So good an opportunity of attacking Christiana and
Goethe could not be missed, for the bourgeois morality
of Weimar had never forgiven their scandalous mar-
riage. Goethe had necessarily to take sides with his
wife, and closed his door to the Arnims. 50
At heart, he did not regret it. Their departure meant
the end of a romantic folly. Henceforth he would have
peace, peace in the company of Zelter, Riemer, Meyer,
and others like them, peace and the old order of things.
Arnim, writing to Grimm at the end of September,
said:
"You can hardly imagine the incredible surround-
ings in which he lives, separated from the rest of soci-
42 =
ety by his wife. And how he fears everything novel in
art, everything which is not well ordered (Unord-
nung) . It is almost laughable. He will say of anything
new: "Yes, it is a very good joke (recht gute Spasse),
but I am no longer interested, (aber sie gehen mich
nicht mehr an). It almost seems as if the writing of his
biography (at which he had been working for a year)
has suddenly aged him, and his way of thinking."
But the astounding adaptability of Goethe's genius
enabled him to recapture the spirit of his lost youth;
we find in the Westostlicher Divan a springtime of ex-
uberant passion, and a dazzling flight of fancy in the
last Faust and the immortal song of the watcher,
Lynceus, whose "happy eyes" are ever open. 51
But a period of sheer despondency and hopelessness
preceded each of these revivals.
He who knew himself so well needed complete isola-
tion in such moments. And, indeed, he found this
isolation, and enjoyed it to the full, in the honest medi-
ocrity of his faithful famuli, and in his good wife's
absence of intellect; a housewife all smiles, bright,
clean, but how vulgar! Nevertheless, this comfort and
sense of ease were dearly bought. Those who persist
in seeing in him "the supreme artist of life" are quite
unaware of the hidden misery of his domestic life;
they have no idea of all the compromises and the af-
Zu^ LU fa £$C fc?&~f~ -—
•a*-*»— *t^-
#
= 43
fronts which he must endure, of the bitter thoughts
which he must hide, and, when things become unbear-
able, of his flights from home, lasting often for
months. . . . No, he was a "supreme artist" only in
his art; his life, seen at close range, inspires us not so
much with admiration as with pity/
52
So Bettina, in spite of her regrets, her constant love,
and her efforts to make peace with Goethe and to for-
get the quarrel, was exiled from the circle of friends
in Weimar. For six long years all correspondence
ceased between her and her idol. 53 Even when they
began to write to each other again, Bettina never re-
captured the good graces of the sorely vexed "Olym-
pian." Beethoven no longer had an advocate to plead
his cause with Goethe.
And just at that moment the two were to meet; fate
unexpectedly decreed that they should come together.
In July, 1812, while Goethe was at Karlsbad, he
received a letter from his grand duke asking him to
come at once to Teplitz, where the young Empress
of Austria 54 wished to meet him. Goethe went to
Teplitz; Beethoven had already been there for a week.
It was not to see him that Goethe went there, but,
being in the same town, he remembered, no doubt, the
44 ^^
striking picture which Bettina had drawn of Bee-
thoven, and the latter's ardent desire to meet him. His
mind misgave him, but the inquisitive eagerness of the
expert in human character won the day.
Teplitz was then full of emperors and empresses,
gorgeous archdukes and court ladies. 55 Beethoven, how-
ever, was not one of those who were impressed by their
dazzling plumage. He wrote in his grumbling way:
"There are few men, and among those few, none of
outstanding merit; I am alone, quite alone." 56
It was then that he wrote to a little eight-year-old
girl the exquisite letter in which we find the famous
passage: "I can admit no other sign of superiority than
a good heart." 57
On the same day, in a letter to his publishers, he
suddenly exclaims, in the midst of business matters,
"Goethe is here." 58
We feel how stirred he was by his presence.
Goethe acted in noble fashion. He was the first to
call (Sunday, July 19th). And he, too, like Bettina
and so many others was conquered at first sight. On
the same day he wrote to his wife:
"Zusammengejasster,™ energischer, inniger, habe ich
noch kelnen Kiinstler gesehen" ("Never before have I
met an artist of more powerful concentration, more
energy or deeper sincerity"). 00
= 45
This is saying a great deal. During his whole life
Goethe had never honoured any other man by such a
testimony of superiority.
How wonderful was his insight, how torrential his
energy, how superhuman his power of concentration,
how fathomless the depth of his inmost feeling!
Goethe, surveying the world of men, sees more freely,
more accurately, more deeply than he understands; in
one piercing glance he has grasped the essentials in
Beethoven's genius and unique personality.
That Goethe was greatly impressed is shown by the
fact that the next day, July 20th, they went out walking
together. On the day after, the 21st, Goethe went to
see Beethoven, in the evening. He called again on
Thursday, the 23rd, and Beethoven played to him at
the piano.
Four days later, on the 27th, Beethoven left Teplitz
for Karlsbad, where his medical adviser had sent him;
Goethe was only there from the 8th to the 11th of Sep-
tember. Did they meet? We do not know. On the
12th Beethoven left Karlsbad again for Teplitz, to
which Goethe did not return. It was the end. During
their whole life the two men were never to meet again.
What had happened? A generous impulse had
drawn them together. The first few days revealed an
undeniable attraction. . . . And then, silence.
46
We find a clue in two letters connected with Bettina.
Their authenticity has been questioned, 61 but in my
opinion this truth is proved by circumstances which I
shall describe later, and by two other letters, unfortu-
nately only too authentic, one from Beethoven to Breit-
kopf (August 9, 1812), and the other from Goethe
to Zelter (September 9, 1812) — not to mention the
gossip then current in Teplitz, which in itself is elo-
quent enough.
I shall try to look on these two men, and to describe
them, as they were, with all their greatness and their
pettiness. Defects are to be found even more in men of
genius than in ordinary men: both Beethoven and
Goethe had a full share of them.
At first, as I have said, Goethe was the more gener-
ous of the two. He held out his hand to Beethoven.
He was as cordial as he could well be, considering that
he was naturally inclined to stiffness, except in his art
and with his bosom friends. Beethoven did not disap-
point him, nor did the next day's impression contradict
the first. But Beethoven seems to have been less favour-
ably impressed by Goethe. The poet, of whom he had
dreamed since childhood, whom he had likened to an
eagle flying with mighty wings in the teeth of the blast,
proved to be a Geheimrat, much concerned with eti-
quette, and profoundly respectful of rank; he was a
■3-
= 47
society man, very polite, stiff to the last degree, who
always watched himself with a painful care lest he
should unbend; who, after having heard Beethoven
play (and we know what torrential floods his improv-
isations were) , told him very courteously that he had
played "most charmingly" ( rf £r spielte kostlzcb")* 2
No doubt, Goethe, who was quite at a loss to express
his appreciation of music, complimented the musician
on his technique and on his clear-cut playing, with the
air of one deeply impressed. But the aesthetic, the rea-
soned judgment which Beethoven looked for from a
man like Goethe, was not forthcoming because Goethe
had, in fact, none to offer; he did not understand. . . .
Beethoven exploded. . . .
Bettina describes the scene. She had not been there,
but afterwards Beethoven ran hot foot, boiling with
rage, to tell her of it. She, no doubt, succeeded in pour-
ing oil on the fire.
Bettina had arrived in Teplitz on the evening of
July 23rd with her husband and her sister, Mme. de
Savigny. She did not know that she would find Goethe
and Beethoven there. This meeting between the two,
which she had so ardently desired, for which she had
worked so tenaciously, had at last taken place. And, to
her bitter disappointment, she was shut out. Goethe
avoided her, all the more carefully because Christiana
48 ^^
was watching him from afar. 68 No doubt Bettina had
told the "Bacchus of music," as she nicknamed Bee-
thoven, that she felt forsaken, like an Ariadne; and it
is clear that Beethoven, very sensible of her charms
and her faithful friendship, had taken her side.* 4 There
was no longer any reason to check the irritation which
the evening with Goethe had roused in him; he ex-
pressed himself therefore without restraint.
Here is the extraordinary scene, written, or spoken,
if you will, in the most genuine Beethoven style, in
which the two great men appear to us in the most
unexpected postures. For it was Goethe whose eyes
filled with tears while Beethoven lectured him sharply
on his sentimentality.
"He finished playing," wrote Bettina. "When he saw
that Goethe was deeply moved, he said: 'Ah, sir, I
had not expected that from you. . . . Long ago I gave
a concert in Berlin. I had worked hard, and thought
that I had done well. I expected a success, but when I
had expended all my energy there was not the slightest
sign of approval! ... It was very painful, indeed,
and I could not understand it. But I soon found the
clue to the secret: The Berlin public was fein gebildet
(fashionably cultured) ; in token of appreciation they
waved their tear-sodden handkerchiefs at me. I saw
that I had a "romantic," 65 not an artistic, audience. . . .
E49
But coming from you, Goethe, I do not like it. When
your poems reach my brain I am filled with pride so
intense that I long to climb to the height of your
grandeur. No doubt, I was unable to rise to such a
height . . . otherwise enthusiasm, in you, would have
found a different mode of expression. Yet you your-
self must know how stimulating it is to gain the ap-
plause of those possessed of understanding! If you do
not recognize me, if you do not reckon me as your
equal, who will? To what beggarly mob (Bettelpack)
must I play to find understanding?' " . . *
This was the first lesson he gave Goethe. What man
had ever spoken to him before in such terms? . . .
Bettina described Goethe's embarrassment, "for he
knew perfectly well that Beethoven was right." 8T
From that moment, Beethoven was ill-disposed to-
wards Goethe; even the smallest incident was not
allowed to pass without comment.
They went out together, Beethoven taking Goethe's
arm. In the streets of Teplitz and in the country lanes
they often met aristocratic strollers. Goethe would bow
ceremoniously, and this annoyed Beethoven; when he
spoke of the court, of the empress, Goethe used
"solemnly humble (jeierlich bescheideri) expres-
sions." 68
"What are you up to?" ("£/ was!") growled Bee-
50 =
thoven. "You shouldn't do that. It is not right. You
should throw boldly in their faces what you have in
you, otherwise they will pay no attention. There is not
a single princess who will recognize the genius of
Tasso except from motives of vanity. That is not the
way I treat them. When I was giving music lessons to
the archduke, he once let me wait in the anteroom. So
I rapped his knuckles, and when he asked why I was
so impatient, I told him that I had wasted my time in
his anteroom and had no patience left. After that he
never kept me waiting. I would have made him feel
the folly and stupidity of such bad manners (Viehig-
keit). I told him: 'You may pin an order to anyone's
breast; he will not be a fig the better for it. You can
bestow the title of Hojrat or Geheimrat, but you will
never make a Goethe, or a Beethoven, either. You must
learn to appreciate, therefore, what you yourself are
unable to create. It will be good for you (Das ist Ihnen
gesundy '." . . .
That was the second lesson. We may imagine the
frown with which Goethe, filled with respect for
hierarchies and the social order, received it.
At this moment the empress, the dukes, and their
suites came in sight, walking towards them. Beethoven
said to Goethe:
= 51
"Let us walk on, arm in arm. They will have to get
out of our way, not we out of theirs!"
Goethe did not approve of this, Bettina continues.
The scene which she describes is well known. He broke
away from Beethoven, and stood at the side of the
road, hat in hand. Beethoven, swinging his arms,
charged right through the midst of the princes, like a
bull, merely touching his hat. They politely made room
for him, and all greeted him in friendly fashion. When
he had passed through them, Beethoven stopped and
waited for Goethe, who was still bowing ceremoni-
ously. Then he said to him:
"I have waited for you because I honour and esteem
you, but you have honoured those people far too
much." 69
That was the third lesson, this time a practical one.
It was a case of action as well as words. But now the
measure was brimming over. The reproach may have
been quite justified, but a man like Goethe could not
allow his ears to be pulled like a schoolboy's!
Did Beethoven, we wonder, realize, even faintly,
how many hard trials, bitter experiences, and dearly
bought lessons were at the bottom of Goethe's social
constraint and his tame acceptance of the order of
things? Even if Beethoven were right, his manner of
expressing his views would be intolerable!
52 ^^
Goethe wrote to Zelter (September 2, 1812):
"I have made Beethoven's acquaintance. His talent
amazes me but, unfortunately, he has no self-control
whatever. He is, no doubt, quite right in finding the
world detestable, but by behaving as he does he really
does not make it any more pleasant for himself or for
others. We must forgive him a great deal, for his hear-
ing is getting very bad; this interferes perhaps less with
his musical than with his social side. He is naturally
laconic, and he is becoming still more so as a result of
his deafness."
Goethe's tone is very restrained. He could not have
said less against Beethoven, and we must acknowledge
his sense of justice/ Note his admission: "He is, no
doubt, quite right in rinding the world detestable."
Here again is Goethe's carefully repressed pessi-
mism. Is there anyone who has deciphered Goethe's
inner self? . . .
Who can have detected, under the poetic laurels
heaped upon him, under the features of the gloomy
Apollo which he wore, the bitter lines of his mouth,
the marks of disappointment and disillusion, and the
weaknesses so desperately concealed? This man de-
tested emotion and abhorred the sight of disease and
death; 71 the fissures in the social structure and in his
own "ego," the possession by evil spirits — a constant
= 53
obsession of his — caused him the utmost alarm; it was
because he found them all within himself. Only his
wisdom and self-control could erect the dikes which
would save him from drowning. 72 Goethe, the monarch
of life, knew only too well on what fragile foundations
his empire rested, and what the building of it had cost
him. Like the master builder in the old legend, he had
walled into the heart of the structure many a woman's
body! What a price did he pay, not for his egoistic
peace of mind (as the vulgar call it, who cannot rise
to such heights), but for the serenity of his work and
its accomplishment. No doubt, he is not so robust, not
so roughly hewn, not so virile as Beethoven. Bee-
thoven's was one long fight; every step cost him dear;
he was wounded again and again; he never wavered,
but rushed, breast forward, straight upon the enemy.
Goethe never fought, never argued. Pride and weak-
ness both forbade a hand-to-hand encounter. He did
not commit himself with the adversaries whom he de-
spised nor, more dangerous still, with those whom he
loved. He had but one resource, only one, always the
same; when he met an obstacle, he fled, fled without
even looking back. He effaced the recollection of the
encounter from his sight and his mind. 73 His mental ex-
istence was a perpetual conquest, his life among men a
constant flight. He stood aside and remained silent. . . .
54 ^^
But Beethoven would never realize this. Who did, in
fact? Of all men, Beethoven would be the last to under-
stand him.
After this meeting, Beethoven did not mince matters.
He was certainly much less restrained than Goethe.
"Goethe is much too fond of the court atmosphere, 74
far fonder than is compatible with the dignity of a
poet {Goethe behagt die Hofluft zu sehr. Mehr als es
einem Dichter ziemt). If poets, who should be the
foremost teachers (Lehrer} of a nation, can forget
everything for dross such as this, let us never again
refer to the foibles of musicians." 75
He wrote this to his publishers. It was rash enough
on his part to confide such impressions to strangers,
but he did not leave it at that. Beethoven had one great
weakness; when he had said something unpleasant to
another, he was never content to let the matter rest
there; he must publish it to the world at large.
After "giving Goethe a good talking-to" he hurried
to the Arnims to tell them the "joke," for that was all
it was — to him. "He was as pleased as a little boy at
having 'teased' Goethe in this way." 76 We can guess
whether the Arnims kept the "joke" to themselves!
Their quarrel with Goethe had made them more in-
tolerant of his weaknesses, and his abject attitude
•</,//. ////./A. :/.,;.■ J. ■■, I. .../.,/.-..■ ,
= 55
towards the court displeased them; so they gave a lively
account of it in their letters from Teplitz. 77
It would not have mattered so much if Beethoven
had restricted his gossip to Bettina's circle and to his
own intimate friends. But he took the story with him
wherever he went. The jeweller, Joseph Turck of
Vienna, who during the season had a shop in Teplitz,
told the following tale of Beethoven's joke with
Goethe to all and sundry. While Goethe and Bee-
thoven were walking out together, greeted at every
step, Goethe said, rather pointedly, that he was tired
of this constant bowing. Beethoven slyly remarked:
"Don't be annoyed, Excellency. Perhaps they are bow-
ing to me!"
We can imagine his hearty laugh, the laugh of a
boy who has never grown up, his delight at having
made a joke at His Excellency's expense. And, having
had his laugh, he forgot the matter. . . .
He forgot it, but the joke went the rounds and
returned to Goethe and Goethe did not laugh, nor did
his devoted followers. . . . 78 The previous year Bee-
thoven had formed a close friendship in Teplitz with
the young Lieutenant Varnhagen von Ense and his
"passion" Rahel, whose beautiful face recalled one
who was dear to him. 79 On the German Olympus,
where Bettina played the part of a daring little Hebe,
56 ^=
sitting on his knees and drinking from Jupiter's cup
like a honey bee, Rahel was Minerva, sprung from
the god's head, standing on guard at the foot of the
throne, ever watchful against possible familiarities.
From the moment when Beethoven had dared to attack
their god's prestige, Rahel and Varnhagen knew Bee-
thoven no longer. Rahel never mentions him again in
her diary/
80
Silence. It is Goethe's deadly weapon, his mighty
arm. He had given his Minerva lessons in this. He
himself, too, was silent henceforth, and for many years
never mentioned Beethoven. In 1813 Zelter, who had
at last discovered the Overture to Egmont, spoke to
Goethe of it. 81 Goethe made no reply. 82 Zelter, though
eventually he found his "road to Damascus" 83 was not
the man to exact from Goethe an admiration which was
not in him.
One person only could hope to do this, by the right
of her beauty and her love — Marianna von Willemer, 84
the Zuleika of the Divan. When her old lover sent her
his Lieder from the Divan, set to music by some undis-
tinguished composer, she had the courage to say, "Yes,
no doubt it is quite nice, but . . .
". . . if I am to be quite frank, I should like Bee-
= 57
thoven to write the melodies to these magnificent
poems: he would understand them fully; nobody else
could (Sonst niemand) ! I felt that very strongly last
winter, when I heard the music to Egmont; it is heav-
enly {himmlisch) ; he has absolutely grasped your
meaning. It can almost be said that one and the same
spirit has inspired (beseelt) your words and given life
to (Jbelebt) his music. . . ." 85
Goethe replied 86 with his accustomed intelligence
and amiability, that more often than not the music writ-
ten to Lieder is misleading; the poet is rarely under-
stood, and only the composer's mood (Stimmung) is
conveyed.
"However," he adds, "I have also found many valu-
able works, in which I am clearly reflected (vielmal
abges pie gelt) ; but the reflection is reduced or enlarged
and is rarely quite true to life. In this respect Bee-
thoven has accomplished miracles (Beethoven hat
darin W under gethan)."
The praise is ambiguous. Goethe appears to see him-
self in Beethoven as if in a magnifying or distorting
mirror.
Marianna, however, did not allow the matter to rest.
A year later she returned to the charge. Speaking of
the return of spring she wrote:
"If you would feel the new-born spring even more
58 ^=
intensely, ask some one with a beautiful soft voice to
sing you Beethoven's Lieder an die feme Geliebte (To
the beloved distant). This music seems to me un-
surpassable; the only other music to which it can be
compared is that to Egmont. . . . But it must be sung
simply and with feeling, and must be very well played.
How I should like to know that it has given you pleas-
ure and what you think of it."
We shall never know what he thought of it. But
I like to think that the more conciliatory attitude and
even the respect which Goethe showed for the name of
Beethoven in 1820 and 1821 was due to this noble
woman. It is true that he did not accept his art, but he
no longer dismissed it with a word of contempt. He
even made an effort, brief and not very serious, it is
true, to understand him, and for this we must give him
credit.
When young Johann Christian Lobe, who in spite
of bashfulness had the courage of his convictions,
dared to point out to him very respectfully how feeble
and "antiquiert" (fossilized) Zelter's music was, and
that the younger generation preferred the music of
Beethoven and Weber, Goethe asked him to give his
reasons, which Lobe did, very intelligently. 87
"In Zelter's Lieder" he said, "the musical accom-
paniment is merely a harmonic and rhythmic filling-in.
V:; ■■*■
_^
"^^^
- -11
jgW
4*4
L*-
= 59
Modern composers have given it the dignity of an
auxiliary expression (Mitsprache) of the sentiment.
If Goethe were to have only the bass and the accom-
paniment of one of Zelter's Lieder played to him, with-
out the melody, he would find it difficult to discover
the least connection between it and the sentiment.
On the other hand, in the music of Beethoven and
Weber the pulse-beats of the sentiment (Leben und
Re gun g des Gefiihls) can be clearly felt in the accom-
paniment. And yet this is only the babbling (Lallen)
of music's childhood. Music will one day reach a stage
in which each note of the accompaniment will play an
integral part in the expression of the sentiment."
Here we find a prophecy of the task of Wagner's
orchestra, a prophecy made in 1820!
Goethe listened, silent and attentive, with bowed
head. Then he went to the piano, opened it, and said:
"Give me an example. If your deductions are correct,
you should be able to prove them."
Lobe then played the accompaniment of a Lied by
Zelter, and that of the Lied from Egmont, Drums and
Fifes (Trommeln und Pfeifen). After that he played
the two melodies.
No doubt Goethe was not convinced and was only
too ready to condemn the new tendencies on the
strength of this isolated example, which may perhaps
60 ^
have been played indifferently. 88 Still, it was a great
deal for him to go even so far as to seek information.
If practice did not interest him, theory did.
Some months later, at the end of September, 1820,
Goethe received F. Foerster, a musician from Berlin.
Talking to him of the wrong interpretation which
Prince Radziwill had given to a dialogue from Faust
which the latter had set to music, Goethe pointed out
the perfect appropriateness of Beethoven's music to
Egmont's monologue in the prison scene. 89 He recited
the monologue in a moving fashion and said:
"Here I have added a note that the music is to play
while the hero falls asleep. Beethoven understood me
and interpreted most admirably my meaning (Bee-
thoven ist mit bewunderungswerten Genie in meine
Intentionen eingegangen)."
A year later the poet Ludwig Rellstab, who was one
of Beethoven's great admirers, 90 had a conversation
with Goethe (the end of October, 1821):
"We spoke a great deal of Beethoven, whom he
knew personally. He was proud to possess some of his
manuscripts. On this occasion he sent for Geheimrat
Schmidt to play a sonata by Beethoven." 01
We see, then, that Beethoven's music was by no
means banned from his house as often has been stated.
Here is a further proof.
= 61
At the beginning of November, 1821, a few days
aftet Rellstab's first visit, Goethe invited a gathering of
friends to listen to young Mendelssohn, then a boy of
twelve. Rellstab gives us a vivid account of this event.
After the child artist had played and improvised ad-
mirably, Goethe fetched some of his precious auto-
graph manuscripts.
"Now, look at this, my boy! This will beat you."
And he placed on the piano the manuscript of a Lied
by Beethoven. 92 The writing was almost illegible!
Mendelssohn burst into laughter.
Said Goethe, "Guess who wrote that."
And Zelter, unpleasant as usual, replied: "Beethoven.
He always writes as if he used a broomstick for a pen."
On hearing this, young Felix was struck silent with
awe. It was a sudden seriousness; it was more; it was
"a solemn marvelling" (heiliges Stauneri) ; his eyes
were fixed, riveted. . . . Gradually an expression of
"joyous wonder illumined his face, as little by little
he unravelled from the crabbed writing the lofty
melody, like the sun rising in splendour." Goethe's
eyes, radiant with joy (Jreudestrahlend) never left his
face. So impatient was he that he did not give him time
to collect his thoughts:
"You see, you see, if I hadn't told you, you would
have been caught. . . . Come now, try it."
62 ^^
Felix began to play hesitatingly; he stopped, cor-
rected his mistakes, discussing them aloud, played to
the end, then played the piece again, this time right
through without interruption. During the whole eve-
ning Goethe was overjoyed, and never ceased to discuss
the feat with his guests.
This shows how exaggerated has been the supposed
ostracism of Beethoven's music in the house at
Weimar. Goethe thought so little of his estrangement
with Beethoven that when, in 1822, the young French
violinist Alexandre Boucher, fearing that Beethoven
would not consent to receive him in spite of his letters
of introduction, sought Goethe's assistance in the
matter, the latter gave him a note to Beethoven, which
at once opened to him the doors of the great com-
poser's house (April 29, 1822 ). 93
How then are we to explain Goethe's extraordinary
silence when Beethoven, in 1823, unwell and worried
by lack of money, wrote him a letter in the humblest
terms (February 8th) asking him to speak on his be-
half to the Grand Duke of Weimar, and beg him to
subscribe for the publication of his Missa Solemms?
On reading this entreaty we feel a sense of shame, not
so much for the writer, as for the recipient; it is painful
to see a great man humiliate himself.
What a moving effort this was, to interest Goethe in
= 63
his humble domestic life, and in his sixteen-year-old
nephew, whose knowledge of Greek he proudly
praised ("But it is very expensive to educate a boy").
What respectful affection he expressed for Goethe,
what vivid recollections of "the happy hours spent in
his company," what "Adoration, love, and high es-
teem" ("Verehrung, Liebe, und Hochachtung"), which
the awkward wording makes even more touching, and,
above all, what fear that the expression of this affection
and the dedication to Goethe of the two great works
Meeresstille, and Gliickliche Fahrt?* might give the im-
pression of having been prompted by mercenary rea-
sons. It seems as if no generously-minded man could
even for a single day have left the sting of suffering
to rankle in a noble and confiding heart. One would
have thought that even if Goethe had no interest what-
ever in a Missa Solemms, he would have opened his
arms to Beethoven, saying:
"I thank you for having come to me for help. Make
no apologies. If you humble yourself before me, it is I
whom am humbled."
Goethe never replied. For this his enemies find a
very convenient explanation. They say that he was "un-
kind"; 05 his admirers in their embarrassment avoid the
question, and state that his health was very poor.
And, indeed, about the month of February, 1823,
64 ^=
Goethe became seriously ill; but let us enquire into the
circumstances more closely.
Beethoven's letter arrived in Weimar on February
15th. Goethe had been feeling unwell since the 13th.
By the 18th he was very ill, even dangerously so. As
was always the case with Goethe, any illness came on
very suddenly and violently, but usually did not last
long. For eight days and eight nights he never left his
armchair; he was feverish and delirious. His two medi-
cal advisers were very concerned, and he himself told
them: "You will not be able to save me. Death is wait-
ing for me; death is lurking at every corner. I am lost."
Nevertheless, he struggled on. He showed on the tenth
day that he was recovering by inveighing furiously
against his doctors, who had forbidden him a certain
beverage which he wanted. "If I am to die, I want to
die in my own way." He had his drink and felt better.
Before the end of the month he was already speaking
of his illness as if it were a matter of ancient history,
and he soon took up his old life — and how vehemently!
Goethe was then seventy-five. He fell in love with a
girl of nineteen, Ulrike von Levetzow. He spent the
months of June and July with her, at Marienbad; this
love affair upset him as if he had been a young man;
for no reason whatever, he would weep; music reduced
him to tears. One month of separation was more than
?4
= 65
he could endure. In September he met the Levetzows
again in Karlsbad, and the old man danced with the
girls. Do not let us accuse him of senility. The pas-
sionate, the great, the magnificent Elegie which his tor-
ments inspired is a glorious work; it possesses the over-
whelming passion, displayed in Werther, and the
plenitude of art which distinguishes the great works of
his maturity. He lived in a tempest, and scattered the
tempest about him. There were some very unpleasant
scenes at home; his son became furious when he heard
that the old man intended to marry again. When he
asked for the hand of Ulrike her parents politely dis-
suaded him. Goethe was deeply distressed. Towards
the end of the year he was again stricken by serious
illness. In his house nobody looked after him. Zelter,
who came unexpectedly to see him, was horrified
when he saw how abandoned was his old friend. The
two old men fell into each other's arms and opened
their hearts to each other. Goethe confessed how un-
happy he was. His last dream of joy was broken; hence-
forth he would have to live a life of renunciation in
deadly loneliness. "If Goethe had died then," writes
Emil Ludwig, "he would have died a vanquished
man."
Goethe lived, thank God, and soon he cut, as it were,
66 ^=
in the glacier of his grief steps by which he rose to
summits which hitherto he had never attained.
We see, however, that if his illness in February was
an inadequate reason for disregarding Beethoven's
letter, the upsetting events of the year, and the fevered
weakness of his disordered heart, explain how, in the
midst of all this storm and turmoil, Beethoven's request
was overlooked. It may, of course, be contended that
this passionate egoism lacked the resources of love and
charity which would have provided him with a noble
diversion from his own sufferings, in alleviating those
of others. But when we realize that this boundless
egoism, the mirror of the universe, was the guiding
principle of a world-wide intelligence, of a spirit full
of light and beauty, we no longer dare to condemn it.
As well condemn the lordly indifference of the sun.
My blame is reserved for Zelter, the faithful but
timid friend. For mediocrity cannot claim the excuses
which we make for genius. If mediocrity be not good
and loyal, what else can be said for it? Zelter was all
the more in duty bound to remind Goethe of Bee-
thoven's request because he himself knew of Beetho-
ven's letter and understood its pathetic appeal. Since
he had met Beethoven in 1819 his feelings towards
him had undergone a complete change. An excellent
man, though unprepossessing, Zelter had been moved
= 67
to tears by Beethoven's physical disabilities and by his
kindness. 80 From that time he showed him a brotherly
devotion; he subscribed to the Missa Solemnis, and put
his Singchor of 160 voices, which was then the best
choral society in Germany, at Beethoven's disposal;
henceforth he included regularly in his programs the
works of the great composer whom he now compared
to Michelangelo.
And yet, so weak and cowardly is man, he was care-
ful not to mention the Missa Solemnis to Goethe. And,
when Beethoven died, Zelter did not dare to speak of
him to Goethe, although in secret his soul saluted the
shade of the demigod. It would appear that during the
whole year the name of Beethoven was never men-
tioned between them. 87
How terrible, how inhuman is this silence, yet who
can tell how often Goethe himself had laid the tomb-
stone of silence upon death, burying thus his secret
thoughts with the death of his nearest and dearest. At
the age of sixty he said to Riemer: 88
"Only those with the acutest sensibility can prove
excessively hard and excessively cold. They must, as
it were, don thick armour in order to ward off harsh
assaults, and only too often does this armour weigh
heavily upon them."
To hide is, with Goethe, an instinctive method of
68 =
defence; the imperious call to concealment sometimes
disguises his anxiety. At the same time his genial su-
periority turns this instinct into the impulse which gave
rise to his most moving lyric flights. The whole nature
of the man was an instrument which he sacrificed in
the service of art and thought. He thrust aside his sor-
rows, his loves, and his fears. . . . Who, indeed, har-
boured more sorrow, love, and fear than this Faust, so
intrepid and restless, round whom the Satanic poodle*
ran in magic circles. . . . The symbolic poodle who,
in old age, never left the shadow of his steps?
I have in my possession a beautiful letter from
Goethe to Wilhelm von Humboldt, written on October
22, 1826, a few months before Beethoven's death.
Humboldt was trying to dissuade Goethe from his atti-
tude of aloofness on the subject of Indian philosophy.
Goethe answered:
"I have nothing whatever against Indian thought,
but I am afraid of it (aber ich furchte mich davor).
It would involve my imagination in the pursuit of the
formless and the misshapen (denn es zieht meine Ein-
bildungskrajt ins Formlose und Difforme); I must
guard myself more earnestly than ever against this
(wovor ich mich mehr als jemals zu huten habe).' m
* Translator's Note. — Romain Rolland refers here to Mephistopheles
in Goethe's great poem, who first approaches Faust in the form of a poodle,
running in circles round his victim and drawing closer and closer.
=69
Always and ever more keenly, as his life draws to
its end, does he feel this secret attraction and the fear
of the abyss.
For Goethe, Beethoven was the abyss.
The famous scene of which Mendelssohn has told us
proves this. It shows us the old man's apprehension,
and his desperate fight to keep behind bars the savage
demons which, many years later, were to bring the aged
Tolstoi low when he wrote the Kreutzer Sonata.
It was in 1830, three years after Beethoven's death.
"In the morning I had to play to him, for nearly an
hour, music by the great composers in chronological
order. . . . He was sitting in a dark corner like a
Jupiter with his thunderbolts. From time to time light-
ning flashes darted from his old eyes. He refused to
let me mention Beethoven, but I told him that I could
not help it, and played the first movement of the C
Minor Symphony. This moved him strangely. At first
he said: 'This does not cause any emotion, only aston-
ishment (das bewegt aber gar nichts, das macht nur
stauneri) ; it is superb!' For a while he continued to
growl in this way. Then, after a long silence, he went
on: 'It is stupendous, absolutely mad. It makes me al-
most fear that the house will collapse. And supposing
the whole of mankind played it at once! . . . 10 ° {Das
ist sehr gross, ganz toll! Man mochte sich jurchten das
70 ^=
Haus fiele ein. Und wenn das nun alle die Menschen
zusammen spielen!) . . . Later on, during dinner, he
started growling again. . . ."
The stroke had gone home. He should have admitted
it, but he refused to do so. He was compelled to cheat,
so that the ordered destiny of his thought might be
fulfilled.
The conclusion to which I have come, is this: Of the
two men, the exalted and often wavering Beethoven-
Dionysus and Goethe, the Olympian, it is Goethe who
concealed the greater moral weakness. But only those
possessing the strongest character recognize their own
weakness and fix the boundaries of their spiritual do-
minion. Beethoven's dominion was the boundless sky
( Me in Reich ist in der Lujt) . Hence his extraordinary
fascination and his generosity, hence also the dangers
about him. The century of music which came after
him fell a victim to them. Only Wagner was strong
enough to take up and grasp the sceptre which the
sorcerer apprentices* had allowed to fall to the
ground. 101
* Translator's Note. — Romain Rolland refers here to Der Zauber-
lehrl'tng ("The sorcerer-apprentice"), a magnificent poem by Goethe. The
theme is that an apprentice — I.e., one who is not a master of his profession,
should refrain from attempting to do great things, otherwise disaster will
follow.
= 71
Beethoven, however, was never aware of the dangers
which he let loose. Nor did he guess, let us hope, the
existence of the secret dislike which separated him
from the great man whom he venerated more than any
other mortal. That he should have suffered from
Goethe's obstinate silence and his failure to reply to
his letters we can well understand. Yet Beethoven, so
easily roused to anger, who would not tolerate from
anyone, even were he one of the world's masters, the
neglect of the consideration to which he was entitled,
never showed any sign of resentment at Goethe's in-
comprehensible attitude. Never once did he complain.
In his Conversation Note-Book* of 1819 we read that
once somebody in his presence attempted to speak dis-
paragingly of Goethe: "Goethe should give up writ-
ing; the fate which awaits singers who have grown old
will overtake him, too."
No doubt Beethoven must have interrupted him
violently with words of protest, for the other person
apologized and hastened to write, "He remains, never-
theless, Germany's greatest poet." 102
The days at Teplitz are not forgotten; but all that
Beethoven remembers of them is the light; the shadows
of the scene have all disappeared. The memory of
* Translator's Note. — Beethoven was then completely deaf. His visitors
wrote whatever they wished to say into his note-book. He would then
answer aloud.
72 ^=
Goethe's weaknesses is gone; his own scoffing and
teasing he has frankly forgotten. Of Goethe he remem-
bers only his greatness and his kindness.
"So you know the great Goethe?" he exclaimed in a
conversation with Rochlitz (1822). He beat his breast,
beaming with joy, "I know him, too; I met him in
Karlsbad 103 God knows how long ago. I was not as
deaf as I am today, but my hearing was even then very
poor. How patient the great man was with me. You
can hardly believe how happy it made me. I would
have given my life for him ten times over."
Thus each passed on his way without clear view of
the other. Beethoven, whose love was the greater, could
but wound his friend. Goethe, whose insight was the
keener, never understood the one who was nearest to
him, the great man who alone was his peer, who alone
was worthy of his friendship and his love.
"We all make mistakes, but everyone makes different
mistakes," wrote the dying Beethoven on his bed of
suffering, like old King Lear. 104
GOETHE'S SILENCE
GOETHE (1810)
DRAWING BY FRIEDRICH WILHELM RIEMER
GOETHE'S SILENCE
"Silence! It is Goethe's deadly weapon, his mighty
arm." I wrote these words in 1927 in my essay on
Goethe's attitude towards Beethoven, after their meet-
ing in Teplitz — that is from the end of 1812 to Beetho-
ven's death.
Since then I have made a closer study of the subject,
with a more intimate knowledge of Goethe's musical
life during these fifteen years (1812-27). I have ven-
tured further into the dark secrets of his silence. Here
is the result of my latest researches.
The outstanding discovery is this:
During this period of fifteen years Goethe, at Wei-
mar, had all the means of obtaining abundant infor-
mation about Beethoven, about both the man and his
75
76 ^=
work. There is every good reason to believe that he did
obtain it.
From 1813 Goethe's constant companion was a close
friend of his, Johann Heinrich Friedrich Schiitz, an
inspector of Berka Spa, a three hours' journey from
Weimar. Schiitz was an excellent pianist and organist.
They often met and Schiitz played to him the works of
German composers, hour after hour. It is true that he
preferred Bach to any other, and that he inspired
Goethe with the same devotion. But he also played
Beethoven frequently.
There was another intimate friend of Goethe's, who
was entirely and singly devoted to Beethoven — the
Secret Councillor of State (Geheimer Regierungsrat)
Friedrich Schmidt. This amiable and worthy man was
an enthusiastic apostle. He wrote sonnets, dedicated to
Beethoven's works. He knew his sonatas by heart, and
played Beethoven almost exclusively, probably, as
Ferdinand Hiller tells us in his memoirs, "with more
intelligence than technique." "This was perhaps not
the best means of propaganda for the master," he
writes: nevertheless, it is worth noticing that Goethe
never showed any objection to listen to him.
In 1817 there arrived in Weimar a musician of con-
siderable reputation, who installed himself there per-
manently as Kapellmeister, Johann Nepomuk Hum-
^77
mel. He was the most famous piano virtuoso of his time.
Hummel, who was then fotty years old, had had the
privilege of being Mozart's only pupil, and he was
both a rival and friend of Beethoven's. They had met
when very young, in 1787 as a matter of fact, when
Hummel was nine years old, and Beethoven seven-
teen. As virtuosi in Vienna, about the year 1802, they
often joined in friendly rivalry; and Karl Czerny
has handed down to us an account of these contests
which divided society into opposite camps. Both were
remarkable in improvisation, but their manner of play-
ing differed greatly. Hummel was a master of good
taste and elegance, and his execution was clear cut and
clean: probably no one ever equalled him in the in-
terpretation of Mozart's music. Beethoven, on the other
hand, excelled in the play of his imagination, the energy
of his rhythm, his ardour, and his control of the mighty
impulses which he released. It is to the credit of the
two virtuosi that their rivalry did not affect their
friendship. It is true that occasionally some small mis-
understanding occurred, when Beethoven would send
Hummel one of those terrible letters of his, in which
he poured a stream of invective on the head of his as-
tonished friend, only to beg him, in the warmest terms,
on the same evening or the next morning, to come and
be friends again. 105 The good-humoured Hummel
78 =
never allowed these incidents to interfere with their
friendship. From 1804 to 1811 he deputized for and
later became the successor of, Haydn, in the house-
hold of Prince Esterhazy at Eisenstadt. And when in
1807 Beethoven came there for the performance of his
Mass in C, and the prince exclaimed, "My dear Beetho-
ven, what on earth have you concocted now?" Hummel
could not hide a smile, thereby drawing upon himself
the thunderbolts of wrath which Beethoven could not
launch against the princely head. Schindler, a very
worthy man, but possessing no sense of humour, con-
cluded, quite mistakenly, that this incident led to a
lasting estrangement. So far was this from being the
case that in 1813-14 we find Hummel gallantly con-
ducting the drums and cannon of his warlike friend's
army in the Schlachtensymphonie (the Battle of Vit-
torza), while Beethoven wrote him facetious Napo-
leonic proclamations. Hummel continued to be the
faithful friend, who immediately, on hearing of Bee-
thoven's last illness, hurried from Weimar to Vienna,
and remained at the bedside of the dying man. We
shall find him there presently. . . . We see, then, that
Beethoven could not have had a more illustrious advo-
cate at Weimar than Hummel. We are told that the
virtuosi of that time were not in the habit of playing
any other compositions than their own; there were,
= 79
however, exceptions, and there is no doubt that Hum-
mel proved, for society in Weimar, a veritable mine of
Beethoven lore. It is therefore difficult to believe that
he never spoke of Beethoven to Goethe, who met him
frequently and was curiously influenced by Hummel's
powers of musical fascination. 106 Goethe, in his wis-
dom, always attached great importance to the judg-
ment of the professional musician, and was thus bound
to take note of the great appreciation which Hummel
professed for Beethoven, even if he himself did not
share it.
Then Zelter, Goethe's Achates, went to Vienna dur-
ing the summer of 1819: he met Beethoven on the way.
In spite of his rugged exterior he was a kindly-hearted
man, and Beethoven's physical sufferings affected him
very deeply; the old friends fell into each other's arms.
"... (Und ich habe kaum die Tranen verhalten kon-
nen — I could hardly restrain my tears)." 107
From this moment Zelter always showed kindness to
the unfortunate man of genius, who displayed the
deepest gratitude to him, a gratitude which was per-
haps out of proportion to the actual value of the
services rendered.
Through Goethe's house there passed a continuous
stream of distinguished visitors — musicians, men of
taste, well-known critics, men personally acquainted
80 ^=
with Beethoven — who have left us interesting accounts
of their conversation with him: Wenzel Tomaschek,
who had set some of Goethe's poems to music; Rellstab,
later the sponsor of the Moonlight Sonata; above all,
Johann Friedrich Rochlitz, the foremost musical his-
torian of the time and for thirty years Goethe's friend
and correspondent, who has spoken so nobly of Bee-
thoven, and to whom Beethoven confided, in 1822, his
unbounded affection for Goethe. 108
But there is more to tell, and I must resume the story
of the year 1823, that year of tragedy, when Beethoven,
harassed by ill-fortune, knocked vainly at Goethe's
door; I have already quoted his humble appeal, which
Goethe, a prey to both the desire of love and the fear
of death, seemed to disregard. When I first pictured
this scene, I did not sufficiently emphasize the pathetic
character of these months of infinite sadness (Wehmut)
when "all seemed lost" for Goethe, and when "he him-
self was lost." 109 Goethe's heart was never more ac-
cessible to music and to musical emotion than in this
very year when he left Beethoven at his door; it was
as if fate had ironically determined to render ridiculous
the misunderstanding which made Goethe turn a deaf
ear to his friend.
His senile love for the nineteen-year-old little
Ulrike was only one indication of the restlessness
= 81
which was then consuming Goethe. In Marienbad this
restlessness came under music's influence. At no other
period of his life did the sound of music overwhelm
him to such a degree; he himself was at a loss to un-
derstand it. Two great women artists thrilled the old
man's heart far more than the colourless Ulrike. They
were Anna Milder-Hauptmann — Beethoven's Leonora
— whose singing of the simplest song moved Goethe to
tears; 110 and even more, an enchanting Polish pianist,
Marie Szymanowska, then thirty-three years of age. He
dreamed for many months of this "ravishing, all-pow-
erful mistress of tone" ("die zierliche Ton-All-
machtige").
But it needed not the art of Muses as fair as these
to overcome him. Even an open-air concert given by the
band of the local infantry regiment was enough to
upset him. 111 This worried him, and he tried to find an
explanation of his emotion; it almost seemed as if he
were ashamed and afraid of it.
His letter to Zelter, in which he told his old friend
of his state of mind, sounds almost apologetic. . . . He
maintained that for the last two years he had not heard
any music — in this he was either wrong or trying
to deceive himself. Suddenly music assailed him and
released the winged messengers of recollections long
forgotten. It was too much. . . . "I am convinced that,
82 =
if I were to go to a concert by your Singakademie I
should have to leave the hall after the first bar. Ah,
when I think," he continued, "of the happiness which I
should derive from hearing every week an opera like
Don Juan! I know now what sorrow it is to be deprived
of a delight which lifts man out of himself, out of the
world, to greater heights. How I need it, how splendid
it would be if I were with you. You would heal my
morbid sensitiveness (krankhaften Reizbarkeit), and
little by little enable me to assimilate once more God's
greatest revelation (die ganze Fulle der schonsten
Offenbarung Gottes in mich aujzunehmeri) . Instead of
this, I shall have to spend a winter empty of music and
form (klang und formlosen Winter) and I am afraid
of it (yor dem mir doch gewissermassen grant). . . ."
This great man, now so old and immured in the cold
walls of solitude, who can fail to be deeply moved at
hearing his confession? . . . But what is it that iso-
lates him ? And what strange fear is it that makes him
dread the thought of leaving his prison? Germany was
full of friends eager to see him. In Berlin his faithful
friend Zelter was anxiously awaiting his coming; he
had been waiting for twenty years past; and the whole
of Berlin, the Court, the elite, and the crowds among
whom Zelter's and Reichardt's Lieder had spread his
fame and given rise to a loving veneration of his name,
— fS
= 83
all were eagerly expecting him. But he never came; he
was never to see Vienna. He is on the defensive . . .
but against what? Is it happiness? Is it glory? Or is it
the gaping crowd which he shuns? . . . How little
self-assurance he has! But he knows what manner of
man he is and we know what a masterpiece he carved
out of his very being. He is wise and recognizes the
abysses which he must avoid.
So he returned to his winter quarters in Thuringia,
frozen to the very heart. He complained that all that
was left for him was to bury himself in his retreat and
await shivering the return of summer, which would
allow him to resume in Bohemia the only life worth
living. . . .
And just then suddenly there appeared on October
24th the cjueen of the snows, the enchantress Szyma-
nowska. 112
There followed twelve days of pure delight, twelve
days devoted to the most sacred emotions of beauty, of
tenderness, and of music. The accents of almost re-
ligious gratitude in which Goethe praised her to the
skies, the charming words with which he bade his visi-
tor farewell on the eve of her departure, are evidence
of the profound joy which her presence and her in-
spired playing had given him. . . , 113
It has, however, not been sufficiently recognized that
84
in these sacred feasts of art Beethoven occupied an
important place. On October 27th a Beethoven trio was
played at Goethe's house. On November 4th, in the
great concert given at the Stadthaus in honour of
Szymanowska, Beethoven figures twice on the program.
The concert opened with the Fourth Symphony in B
Flat, and after the interval his quintet, op. 16 for piano,
oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, was played. Thus
Beethoven had the lion's share, and without mention-
ing his name, Goethe confessed to Knebel that he was
again "completely carried away by the whirlwind of
sounds (da bin ich nun wieder in den Strudel der Tone
hineingerissen)." Thus there had been opened to him
a new world, the world of modern music which he
had hitherto refused to accept — "durch Vermittelung
eines Wesens, das Geniisse, die man immer ahndet und
immer entbehrt, zu verwirklichen geschaffen ist
(through the medium of one who has the gift of en-
dowing with life those delights which we resent and
of which we deprive ourselves)."
The following incident shows how deep was the
emotion in the old man's heart at this time. On the
evening of November 5th Mme. Szymanowska came to
bid him good-bye. Goethe kissed her without a word;
his eyes dwelt upon her as she walked away. He turned
to Councillor van Miiller and said: "I have much to
= 85
thank her for . . . she has given me back to myself
(mich zuerst mir selbst wiedergegeberi)."
He went to bed at an early hour, feeling worn out.
The next morning he had a heart attack. He had vio-
lent fits of coughing; he felt as if he were going to
die. When Zelter arrived on November 24th it
seemed to him a house of death that he entered; he
was paralyzed with fear. For twenty days he remained
closeted with his old friend who confided all his trou-
bles to him. They spoke also of music. Zelter mentioned
that Haydn was writing some "joyous" masses, and
that when some one had expressed surprise at this new
style of sacred music he had replied: "When I think
of God I always feel so indescribably happy. ..."
And tears, healing tears, again flowed over Goethe's
cheeks.
On December 13th Zelter left, and again Goethe
took up his life and its tasks.
Thus we see how filled with tenderness, emotion,
and melancholy was the Goethe of that time, how
deeply music affected him. I was wrong, therefore, in
saying, as I did, that during these tempestuous months
the thought of Beethoven had altogether vanished. No,
the spirit of Beethoven, too, had been heard amid the
storm. . . .
86 ^^
All the more extraordinary is it, therefore, that
Goethe, after his recovery, never spoke of him.
Just then death knocked at Beethoven's door.
At the first news of the danger, Hummel, the Wei-
mar Hoj kapellmeister and a cherished friend of
Goethe, left to bid a last farewell to his great fellow
artist, taking with him his wife and his young pupil,
Ferdinand Hilier, for whom Goethe showed a fatherly
affection. They arrived in time to find Beethoven still
fully conscious and happy to see the old couple again.
They embraced each other and they talked. Hummel
and Hilier paid four visits (February 28, March 13,
March 20, March 23, 1827 ). 114 Each time they found
him weaker. The sun was setting. At the last visit the
sufferer could no longer speak; his teeth were clenched
in the supreme struggle. Frau Hummel bent over him
and wiped the sweat from the dying man's brow.
Beethoven's expression at this moment had a striking
effect on young Hilier. Forty years later he wrote: "I
shall never forget the look of gratitude in those broken
eyes (sein gebrochenes Auge) as he turned them on
her."
Three days later Beethoven died. Hummel was pres-
ent at the funeral. On April 9th he returned to Wei-
mar, 115 and met Goethe again. . . .
f 1 \ Y .
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= 87
Nothing. . . . Goethe asked no questions. . . .
Goethe found nothing to say. . . , 116
Nothing? Yes, he did say something — a year later.
And it was all he ever said on this subject.
In 1828, in his report on the Monatschrift der Gesell-
schaft des vaterlandischen Museums in Bohmen,
Goethe wrote, in stilted fashion:
"Mention should be made of the 'Requiem' by To-
maschek, to which we shall refer separately in greater
detail, because it is one of the most recent creations of
the famous composer; we should also make honourable
mention of the religious service held in Prague on the
occasion of Beethoven's death" ( fr 5o wie zugleich der
fur Beethoven veranstalteten kirchlichen Totenjeier
ehrend Erwahnung zu tun").
His pen had compelled him to write the name "Bee-
thoven" . . . "ehrend Erwahnung! . . "
And this is the single reference to Beethoven in the
whole of Goethe's writings!
""N/7 mirari."
Whatever we may feel, let us do as Goethe did —
let us try and understand.
In all that we have noted not a trace of personal
hostility is to be found. The thought of Beethoven,
whose mind and person had for a moment fascinated
him, no doubt distressed and troubled him; so Goethe
88 ^=
put it from his mind. It would, however, be utterly
false to maintain that he ever showed the slightest
dislike for him.
There are other great musicians whom physically
Goethe could not tolerate. Weber, for instance, whose
last visit (July, 1825), just before his death, leaves us
a terrible impression. Weber, already suffering from
his last illness, was announced. He was kept waiting
in the antechamber. Twice afterwards he was asked for
his name, a name famous throughout Germany since
the triumph of his opera Vreischutz in Berlin in 1821,
and even in Weimar in 1822. Goethe had heard it
in 1824, as well as Euryanthe. When at last he was
admitted to Goethe's presence he found "a man of
stone," ice-cold and stern, who spoke to him with a
frigid politeness on matters of no moment. Not a word
was said of his music. Weber left, deeply hurt, went
to bed shaking with fever, remained in bed at his hotel
for two days without anyone troubling about him, and
left Weimar forever.
This was a case of Goethe's dislike for the whole
man with all his attributes. He disliked Weber's per-
son, his leanness, his sickliness, his grotesque shape, his
perpetual snuffling, his ugly spectacles; the whole
wretched appearance of the man irritated the Olym-
pian: he disliked his mind, the mind of the self-
= 89
appointed mouthpiece of the national and military
instincts of the vulgar, which Goethe despised. He dis-
liked his noisy, rowdy music — "A lot of noise for
nothing," Goethe grumbled as he left the theatre after
the second act of Oberon. Finally he disliked the man
who set stupid poems to music; this was an unforgiv-
able offence in Goethe's eyes, and we may add that
on this last point Beethoven condemned Weber with
equal severity.
There is nothing of this kind in the case of Bee-
thoven. Let us remember Goethe's feeling of respect
and astonishment when he first met Beethoven (1812) :
"Zusammengefasster, energischer, inniger habe ich
noch keinen Kiinstler gesehen"
Beethoven made a great impression on Goethe. But
the latter feared him; it was apprehension of a claim
to equality, a claim which he must set aside.
Goethe was too noble to refuse to admit equality in
others. For him it should have been rather a reason for
seeking out Beethoven.
Was it his music, then, that he disliked?
In all our researches we have not found a single fact
suggesting that Beethoven's music was not frequently
performed in Weimar, either at concerts or at the
theatre, or, for that matter, even at Goethe's own house.
Under the very direction of Goethe performances of
90 ^=
Egmont were given at the Weimar Theatre, with Bee-
thoven's incidental music. 117 And in 1816 he produced
Fidelio. 118 Whether he liked this music or not, he re-
spected the composer's artistic rights and independ-
ence; he would never have hindered his triumphal
progress.
Besides, Beethoven's greatness was already estab-
lished. After 1815 it was an accomplished fact. The
examples which I quoted in my first essay prove that
in 1820 and 1821 Goethe himself expressed his esteem.
Beethoven, as represented by Egmont, is certainly be-
yond discussion.
I may add that on no occasion did Goethe ever re-
fuse, from mere prejudice, to listen to those who
desired and were qualified to teach him something. His
highly developed scientific mind imposed this upon
him. He was not one of those poets who in idle pride
despise the lessons of history. 119 As I shall show later,
no other writer showed a greater and more sustained
interest in art and particularly in the history of music.
The comprehension of a work of art seemed to him
impossible without a perception of its proper place in
the chain of evolution of form and mind. 120 And in that
chain of evolution Goethe's personal predilection did
not react against this or that particular work. His in-
telligence alone was concerned; it observed the facts,
= 91
deduced with lucidity the laws governing them, and
accepted these laws with serenity. He never missed an
opportunity of organizing in Weimar musical per-
formances in historic cycles with commentaries and
thus presented the finest examples of music of the
different epochs. In 1818 Schutz, of Berka, played for
him during three consecutive weeks, for three or four
hours every day, German compositions for the piano
from Handel and Bach to Beethoven. In 1830
Mendelssohn, at his request, played for him for a
fortnight all the classical composers from the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century to the ri ' grossen neuen
Technikern" ("the great modern technicians") of
whom, as Goethe wrote to Zelter, he gave him "a suffi-
cient idea" ^htnr etch end e Begrifje"). And there is no
doubt that among these "great modern technicians"
Beethoven had the place of honour. 121
I feel convinced that Goethe did not deny him this
place. I have said elsewhere that in all technical ques-
tions concerning an art other than his own, Goethe was
loyal enough to accept the judgment of those whom
he recognized as more competent than himself. Now,
about the year 1825 I fail to find any musician of im-
portance in Goethe's circle — Rochlitz, Schutz, Mendel-
ssohn, Lobe, Tomaschek, Rellstab, even Zelter — who
did not recognize Beethoven's musical genius, what-
92 =
ever may have been the criticisms which one or another
expressed of his work.
What, then, is the conclusion?
It is this, that Goethe admitted, recognized, even
admired his greatness, but did not like it.
That is the whole point. Can we blame him? No
man can love to order. Goethe in his affection and his
art was always sincere.
His predilection in music we shall see later. It is a
fine, one might even say an enormous, field. It extends
from the popular Lied to the choral polyphony of the
Italian sixteenth century, from Palestrina to Bach,
from Don Juan to the Barber; the heroic oratorios of
Handel were enthroned in the very centre of his af-
fections side by side with the "Well-tempered Clav-
ichord"; I know few poets of whom as much could
be said.
But there were two things which he did not like,
two types of music, the colossal and the melancholy
romantic. To be crushed or to be depressed was to him
equally unendurable.
A third matter, entirely physiological, influenced
his judgment; his ear could not tolerate "too much
noise." This was one of the reasons why he did not
leave home during his last years, going to the theatre
only on very rare occasions. The new music induced in
= 93
him physical suffering. He would listen to orchestral
music only if it was arranged for the piano.
This suggests the true meaning of the exclamation
which I quoted earlier in this book, after Mendel-
ssohn had played the first movement of the C Minor
Symphony.
(f Und wenn das nun alle die Menschen zusammen
spiel en" (Supposing the whole of mankind played
it at once).
We can picture him making off, his hands clapped
over his ears.
Is it astonishing? In 1830 Goethe was the man who
long, long ago as a boy, had heard the seven-year-old
Mozart play. He was descended from the far-off golden
age, and the development of his organic sensibility
could not keep pace with the growth of his intelligence.
Now when a man's senses can no longer appreciate
works of art without pain and suffering, his intelli-
gence inclines him to the belief that here is an art
which must inevitably crush and depress him. Goethe
therefore put it from him. In so doing he put Bee-
thoven from him.
To every age its measure. What oppresses one will
exalt the next. Thus it shall be to the end of time. 122
GOETHE THE MUSICIAN
■ JL.B.ilJfc-f-'T 1
CHRISTIANA GOETHE
DRAWING BY GOETHE
GOETHE THE MUSICIAN
Goethe's attitude towards music has not hitherto re-
ceived the attention which it deserves, especially in
France. The man of letters who is also a musician is
a rarity in Latin countries. When men of this type are
found, their taste in music is usually so amateurish that
it has been supposed that Goethe was cut to the same
inadequate measure. Even at his best, Goethe was not
considered to be on a higher level than that of a gifted
amateur. He was known to be distinguished, refined,
and sensitive, but without any technical knowledge, a
man who judged musical works according to the im-
pressions which they made upon him; these impres-
sions, at times vivid and penetrating, were largely in-
stinctive, and were often affected by the prevailing
fashion of the day. His failure to understand Bee-
97
98 ^^
thoven was thus set down to an incompetence in an
art which was altogether alien to him.
But when we take the trouble to follow Goethe's
artistic life from beginning to end, we find that we
must abandon this view. From first to last we are struck
by the great part which music played in his life. 123
We know, of course, that he was above all a
"visual,"
Zum Sehen geboren,
Zum Schauen bestellt . . .
(Born to see, destined to observe . . .), and that to
him the finest harmony was that which was conveyed
through his sight. It was he who said so strikingly,
"compared with the eye, the ear is a dumb sense"
("gegen das Auge betrachtet, ist das Ohr ein stummer
Sinn"). Nevertheless, there was no dumb sense in
Goethe; every pore, as it were, was open to the beauty
of the world, and we can almost say that in his case
the ear was a second eye.
As I have already said, his ear was most sensitive.
He could not tolerate din; street noises were a torture
to him, he had an aversion to the barking of dogs; he
avoided the blare of the romantic orchestra, and at
the theatre the kettle-drum beats hurt him; he would
leave his box in the middle of the performance. We
= 99
must always bear in mind the extreme sensitiveness of
his nerves, the delicate organisms which dominated his
mind. His recognition of this heel of Achilles (for he
knew all his weaknesses) was largely responsible for
his isolation at Weimar, and his fear of large cities.
But do not let us make any mistake. It was noise
which he hated; the fulness of rich, pure sound de-
lighted him. He had a fine and powerful bass voice,
and liked to hear it. 124 Even at the age of seventy he
astounded Mendelssohn by its "tremendous sonority"
i^'ungeheurer Klang"). That voice, had he wished,
could have been "heard above the din of ten thousand
warriors," the young musician wrote to his sister Fanny.
And indeed, when he directed rehearsals at the Weimar
Theatre, his commands, thundering forth from his box,
filled the whole theatre. 125 When he recited he knew
how to use all the registers of his voice.
He had developed this magnificent organ, not only
by reading aloud and reciting, but also by singing. As
a little child he learnt by heart the tunes of children's
songs even before he could understand the meaning of
the words, as children mostly do. In Leipzig he sang
sentimental duets with the Breitkopf sisters. Never,
throughout his life, did he write a Lied without hum-
ming a melody to it. 120 "Never read, always sing" ("Nur
nicht lesen, hnmer sin gen!" ) he wrote in a love poem
100 =
to Lina, recommending that, in order to read his poems,
she sit at the piano and play. Here we have a trait which
distinguished him essentially from all our songless
poets. Of music he said that it was the "true element
from which all poetry is derived and into which all
poetry flows," like a river into the sea ("von der
Tonkunst dem wahren Elemente, woher die D'tcht-
ungen entspringen, und wohin sie zuruckkehren").
Besides singing, he had learned in Frankfurt to play
the piano, and in Strasbourg he had studied the 'cello.
We read that in 1795, at the age of forty-six, "he
played the piano quite well" ( rf £r spielt Klavier, und
gar nicht schlecht"). 127 There is, however, reason to
believe that after he settled in Weimar (towards the
end of 1775) he neglected the piano, except on rare
occasions when he used Wieland's instrument. No
doubt he did not consider it advisable to be heard at
a court of music-lovers in which his fair friend,
Frau von Stein, played both the piano and the lute.
His privileged position enabled him also to hear music
whenever he wished, without having to play himself;
he had but to send for the court musicians, who were
under his orders.
It is well to remember, however, that music was to
him not simply an amusement. It was either an intelli-
gent interest for the mind, a means of soothing, calm-
= 101
ing, and restoring the spirit, or a source of direct
inspiration to creative activity. 128 Thus in 1779 he sent
for the musicians "to soothe his soul and set free his
spirit" ({'die Seele zu lindern und die Geister zu ent-
binden"), while he was writing Iphigenie. In 1815-
16 he had recourse to music as a help to inspira-
tion while he was writing Epimenides. In 1820 he
wrote: "I can always work better after I have been
listening to music."
There is no doubt that he composed, and that he
even wrote in several parts. The following is a curious
example:
During the summer of 1813 — the year after he met
Beethoven — while he was alone in Bohemia and in a
depressed frame of mind, he meditated deeply on the
immortal words of desperate hope — In te Domine
speravi et non conjundar in aeternum. He set them to
music for voices in four parts. The following winter,
reading his composition again, he asked Zelter to set
the same words to music also in four parts. His oblig-
ing friend obeyed. And Goethe, after comparing the
two versions, wrote to Zelter (February 23, 1814) that
the comparison had thrown a light on his own musical
personality; his composition reminded him of Jom-
melli's style (that wasn't half bad!). He added: "How
astonished and pleased we are when we find ourselves
102 ^^
unexpectedly on such paths. We become suddenly
aware of our own subconscious life" ("Nachtwandeln"
— literally, "sleepwalking" ) .
But his conception of art was too high to permit the
existence of schoolboy compositions; they were written
in a language which remained foreign to him, no mat-
ter how skilfully he spoke it.
What had been his musical development?
As a child, in Frankfurt, the Italian arias and the
French light operas (Sedaine and Favart, Monsigny
andGretry). 129
In Leipzig, the German Sings pi el e (ballad operas)
in which Johann Adam Hiller excelled. But the worthy
Hiller, whom Goethe knew personally, was much more
than an amiable musician; he was one of the greatest
musical instructors in Germany. He had founded a
weekly musical journal and had organized excellent
symphony and choral concerts (he called them "musi-
cal evenings") which later on became the famous
Gewandhaus concerts. At these performances Hasse's
oratorios were given with excellent singers, who roused
the enthusiasm of the youthful audiences. Sixty-three
years later these memories were still fresh in the mind
of the aging Goethe, and he referred to them in two
= 103
touching poems, written in 1831 on the occasion of
the eighty-second birthday of Gertrud Schmehling,
who sang under the name of la Mara, the most famous
of the soloists who appeared at these Leipzig concerts.
Another of the singers, Korona Schroter, was engaged
by Goethe, eight years later, to appear in Weimar; they
were close friends and seem to have played with fire;
it is said that Goethe burnt himself. . . .
During this first period, before Goethe was twenty,
the sceptre of music was wielded by Hasse, the great
master of pure melody whom even Mozart hardly sur-
passed. But the influence of Gluck was already becom-
ing apparent. ... It goes almost without saying that
Gluck represented for Goethe one of the loftiest peaks
in the art of music, 130 and it was not altogether his fault
if the two did not work together. In 1774, when
Goethe's period of Lieder was in full blossom, after
the delightful spring of Strasbourg, he was trying to
find a composer who could work hand in hand with
him. He asked one of his friends to mention him to
Gluck, and she sent some of young Goethe's poems to
the old composer. Gluck, unfortunately, was in one
of his bad tempers. He refused even to read the poems.
He said very angrily that he was very busy and had
all the poets he wanted — Marmontel, Sedaine. . . .
Alas!
104 ^^
Two years later, in 1776, the roles were changed; it
was Gluck who approached Goethe. They were sad
days for Gluck. In April he had lost his adored niece,
Nanette Marianna, "the little Chinese girl," the night-
ingale whose voice was so frail and pathetic. She died
at the age of seventeen. Gluck received the terrible
news in Paris, on the morning after the first perform-
ance of Alcestis, which had been a complete failure.
He was grief -stricken; nothing mattered any longer;
music meant nothing to him; he would not compose
again. . . . Yes, he would write one more song in
which all his love, all his despair, should cry aloud to
the world. He wrote to Klopstock, he wrote to Wie-
land. Both referred him to Goethe, and it was Wieland
who put Gluck's request before his young fellow poet.
Goethe was greatly moved; he began to give the mat-
ter some thought. But those were days of feverish and
troubled anxiety to him. He had just arrived in Wei-
mar, where he was beset by the demands of pride
and love. These were the early days of that passion-
ate friendship which was to bring him so many
joys, such creative dreams, and such torments. He was
the slave of Charlotte von Stein. 131 His thoughts, filled
for a while with the grief of the old singer of Orpheus,
strayed elsewhere; he cast aside the work which he had
begun. 132 In vain did Gluck plead. . . .
= 105
"My heart is filled with sadness," he wrote to Frau
von Stein; "I am writing a poem for Gluck on the
death of his niece" ^Ich wohne in tiefer Trauer iiber
einem Gedicht dass ich fur Gluck auf den Tod seiner
Nichte machen will") , 133
It seems, however, that the plan which he had con-
ceived for this was too vast. 134 He did not find the
quiet frame of mind required for such a work, and so
he gave it up. 135
This was not, however, the last time that Goethe and
Gluck were in contact. During the years which fol-
lowed, Gluck was greatly appreciated in Weimar, 136
and Goethe sought from him not only the creative stim-
ulant which he often looked for in the works of
musicians, but lessons in dramatic style and declama-
tion. 137 His lovely friend, Korona Schroter, had
often sung Gluck to him, and sung it well. Goethe at
the time desired to train for his own personal use a
composer who should, as it were, complement him.
Music, indeed, was to him an integral and necessary
part of the lyric and theatrical art with which he was
then preoccupied. So he proposed to send Christoph
Kayser, whom he had chosen for the purpose, to Gluck.
He wrote to Gluck, who at that time was very ill,
indeed at death's door, and the latter at once replied,
106 ^=
asking to be excused on account of his paralyzed hand
(1780).
At this time (1781) Goethe was much interested in
Jean-Jacques Rousseau's musical ideas. Goethe's
"monodrama" Proserpina belongs to a class of play in-
augurated by Rousseau's Pygmalion.
But there was yet another and more powerful star
rising in Goethe's heaven, Handel. Weimar was just
then in theatrical matters well ahead of the rest of
Germany, and about January-March 1781, the town
saw the first performance in Germany of Alexander's
Feast and of the Messiah. This was a great event for
Goethe. He followed the rehearsals very closely and,
according to his own confession, 138 he acquired "many
new ideas on declamation" ("neue Ideen von Dekla-
mation"). To Goethe Handel remained one of the
gods of Olympus, although he had hardly any further
opportunities of hearing his music in the little town. 139
This was probably one of the grounds on which his
friendship with Zelter was based. 140 It was a perform-
ance of the Messiah which had decided the musical
career of the young master-mason; it had moved him
so deeply that he sobbed bitterly as he walked on foot
from Potsdam to Berlin, after the performance (1783).
The two friends were haunted by this great work, to
such a point that later 111 they decided to write together
= 107
an immense oratorio which would stand worthily be-
side the Messiah. In letters dating from 1816, Goethe
sketched out the basic ideas of the plan:
"The two ideas: Necessity and Liberty. ... In this
circle everything is to be found in which man is inter-
ested. ..."
The work was to begin with the thunder on Mount
Sinai, the "Thou shalt" ( rr D# sollst"), and end with
Christ's resurrection, and the "Thou shalt be" (J r Du
wirst").
It has been justly pointed out that although this
plan so enthusiastically conceived did not mature, the
second Faust profited by several of its inspirations; the
Epilogue in Heaven is its direct result. Who would
ever have thought that Faust, in this magnificent per-
oration, is the indirect heir of Handel?
We shall see later how the exultant and illuminat-
ing art of Handel affected Goethe's imperious tastes
in religious music. There was, in fact, a preestablished
harmony between him and this form of art.
As he grew old, he felt an irresistible desire to re-
juvenate his aging mind in this fountain of energy.
In the spring of 1824 an essay by Rochlitz on the Mes-
siah rekindled the fire of his imagination. He wrote to
Zelter he imbibed with delight Handel's Geistesge-
walt ("Gigantic Spiritual Power"). If anything could
108 =
have persuaded him to emerge from his retreat in
Weimar and go to Berlin, it was Zelter's great orches-
tral and choral performances, which reawakened in
Germany the all-embracing spirit of Handel and
Bach. Goethe eagerly read Zelter's letters on this
subject; by means of them he heard the performances
almost as perfectly as we would hear them by wireless.
"It is," he once said, "as if I heard at a distance the
sound of the sea" ( rf Es ist mir als wenn ich von feme
das Meer brausen horte") .
There is a close analogy between these words and
Beethoven's remark on hearing Bach's music: "His
name should not be brook (Bach), but sea . . ."
("Nicht Bach sondern Meer sollte er heissen we gen
seines unendlichen, unausschopfbaren Keichtums von
7 ' onkombinationen und Harmonien"). 142
Goethe was not only overwhelmed by these musical
immensities; he also admired the architectural beauty
of the oratorios. During the last three years of his life
he never tired of studying the construction of the
Messiah, Samson, and Judas Maccabaeus (1829-32).
Towards the close of the year 1785 another star
began to shine in his firmament — Mozart. Goethe then
heard, for the first time, the opera // Seraglio, in
Weimar. He was delighted with it. But this opera was
a serious blow to him, for just then he and Kayser were
= 109
making great efforts to evolve a form of comedy with
music. Suddenly, at a single stroke, Mozart wiped out
all they had done, realized all they had hoped to
achieve, and surpassed their utmost ambitions. Goethe,
however, was not so narrow-minded as to bear him any
ill-will. 143 From the day on which Goethe became the
director of the Weimar theatre, Mozart reigned su-
preme, and his reign endured.
We must not forget that, for rwenty-six years, from
May, 1791, to April, 1817, the climax of his life,
Goethe undertook a task which to us seems ungrateful
and out of all proportion to his genius, namely, the
direction of a provincial theatre where not only plays,
but operas also, were given. 144 He took this work
very seriously, especially until 1808, when the per-
petual quarrels incited by the prima-donna Karolina
Jagemann, who was the recognized mistress of the
duke, and who used her position to impose her will on
the management of the theatre, caused him the utmost
disgust. But during the long period of his direction,
600 pieces were performed, of which 104 were operas,
and 31 Sings pi el e (ballad operas). Mozart's works
easily held the first place. When, in 1795, Goethe
summed up the work of the theatre during its first
ten years, he found that not one work had been given
more than twelve performances, except The Magic
110 =
Flute with twenty-two, and // Seraglio with twenty-
five performances. Twenty years later, the total num-
ber of performances of Mozart's operas under Goethe's
direction were: 82 of The Magic Flute™* 68 of Don
Juan, 49 of 11 Seraglio, 33 of Cost fan Tutte, 28 of
Titus, and 19 of The Marriage of Figaro, which,
strangely enough, was in Weimar always the least suc-
cessful of Mozart's works. Until the advent of Schil-
ler's dramas, Mozart remained the first favourite; after
Schiller's death, opera again outweighed drama.
Goethe's best pieces, Faust, Tasso, lphigenie, Gotz von
Berlichingen, were played only long after they were
written and on rare occasions. More frequently we find
his lighter works, his Singspiele, of which even the
most popular, Jery und Bately, was given 24 times
only. Mozart's supremacy in this theatre is therefore
incontestable.
That Goethe agreed with the public verdict is proved
by a famous letter to Schiller. The latter had expressed
to his friend the great hopes which he had founded on
opera; he was even of the opinion that "just as once
upon a time tragedy was evolved from the choruses of
the ancient feasts of Bacchus, it would again emerge
from opera, but in a nobler form," because opera was
free from the slavish imitation of nature, and in it art
had "free play." Goethe replied: "You could have
= 111
seen your expectation of the future of opera realized
to a high degree in Don Juan. But this work remains
unique, and with Mozart's death all hope of hearing
anything like it is lost."
He expressed the same regret towards the end of his
life, 146 when he deplored with Eckermann, in 1829,
that he could find no suitable music for Faust. "It is
quite impossible," said Goethe. "The music would
have to be in the character of Don Juan. Mozart should
have composed it." 147
It is said that the last songs which Goethe heard
were melodies from Don Juan, which his grandson
Walther sang him on the evening of March 10th. 148
Among the other masters of the lyric theatre whose
works were most frequently performed in Weimar
under Goethe's direction we find, during the early
days, Dittersdorf, Benda, Paesiello, Cimarosa, Mon-
signy, Dalayrac, Gretry, Salieri, and Sarti. 149 After
1800, Cherubini, Mehul, Boieldieu. After 1810,
Paer, Simon Mayr, and Spontini. Weber made his
appearance in 1814 with Silvana, Beethoven's Egmont
was given in 1812-14, and his Fidelio in 1816.
Then came Rossini's period of triumphs: Semiramis,
La Gazza Ladra, The Siege of Corinth, later William
112 ^^
Tell and Moses. The only works which rivalled his
were those of Spontini, for whom Goethe showed
much consideration, and whom he treated as Rossini's
equal, and Weber's Freischiitz. Finally there was
Auber. Goethe, who at that time did not visit the the-
atre frequently, heard, in IS 24, Euryanthe and Frei-
sch.\:z. Fernando Cortez, Tancredi, The Marriage of
Figaro; in 1S26 die Berber of Seville; in 1827 La Gazza
LaJra; in 1S2S L; Dame Blanche and The Mason; in
1S29 Oberon, which aggravated him. This was the last.
Dramatic music was not sufficient for Goethe. He also
liked sacred music on a large scale, and chamber music.
As far as the first was concerned, the resources avail-
able in Weimar were very meagre. During the finest
epoch, that of Schiller and Herder, all that was given
in the course of ten years were three or four oratorios
by Haydn and Graun. The difficult}' was that Herder,
the general superintendent of schools and churches,
and Goethe, the director of the theatre, were compelled
bv lack of resources to compete for the sen-ices of
choristers. Herder complained, not without reason, that
Goethe deprived him of the seminarist choir; but
Goethe was forced to take this step in order to earn-
on his opera house.
= 113
The chamber music consisted principally of con-
certs by virtuosi. Goethe, however, was not satisfied
His lifelong wish, as he expressed it in Wilhelm
Aleister, was that music should form part of our daily
life. His dream was a private choir, and in September,
1807, he carried his plan into effect. The times were
ripe for meditation and the culture of the arts. Ger-
many's defeat, after the battle of Jena, forced the coun-
try to turn to its own spiritual resources. Bode has
pointed out how the different classes of society and
the different provinces of the Vaterland were brought
closer together. Even-body felt, as never before and
never afterwards, the need of spiritual communion in
their most sacred emotions, in art and in thought.
Goethe's prestige was growing rapidly during those
years; he was well aware that "noblesse oblige" would
prevent him from accepting any benefit which would
not, at the same time, prove of service to those who
surrounded him, and through them, \"Teimar setting
the example, to the whole of Germany. Two months
after the foundation of his private choir he presented
it to a circle of chosen friends, and a month later to
the court; still later (February 22, 1810) to the whole
town.
This choir, which had very modest beginnings, was
really a choral society (a four-part chorus). The
114 ^=
young violinist and composer, Karl Eberwein, soon
became the conductor. The repertoire, which increased
rapidly, consisted mainly of the great Italian and Ger-
man sacred music: Jommelli, Joseph Haydn, Mozart,
Fasch, Salieri, Ferrari (offertories, motets, canons,
hymns), as well as Lieder by Zelter, Reichardt, and
Eberwein. Even masses and fragments of oratorios
were introduced. Of course Goethe's personal influence
was felt much more in the rendering of the Lieder and
the humorous compositions, because there the poet and
theatrical producer insisted on his rights; it was he
who decided on the tempi and the expression.
But in the execution of both kinds of music, sacred
or secular, there was one inexorable law which Goethe
imposed on his musicians and which governed the
choice of his programs; he would have none of the
tendency, then so common in Germany, to whining, to
religious lamentations and love laments, to what he
called "graveyard music." Though the particular cir-
cumstances of that period would have admitted, or
even prompted, melancholy, this energetic man forbade
its expression. He cursed the weeping-willow poets
who had opened the flood-gates of this mournful
inundation, among them Matthisson and Tiedge, both
friends of Beethoven. I am not sure that the mere
mention of the subject did not set him against the
= 115
immortal song-cycle, "An die feme Geliebte" ("To
the distant beloved"), which his Zuleika, Marianna
von Willemer, recommended so strongly to him. In
the course of a journey in 1817 he heard a melancholy
love song, "I have loved and love no more; I have
laughed and laugh no more . . ."; he was furious and
wrote at his hotel table:
"I have loved, and now I begin to love more than
ever. . . . Today as yesterday, the stars are shining.
Avoid as you would the plague those whose heads are
bowed in woe. Live always as if life were just begin-
ning!" ( rr und lebe dir immer von vorne") !
This, then, was another trait, one of the best, which
he shared with Zelter, who bore so many troubles on
his shoulders and shook them off so cheerily.
What Goethe demanded both of sacred and of sec-
ular music was that it should set free the joy of living,
moral confidence, whole-hearted energy, and above all,
the impulse of reason; it should encourage the spirit
of clearness of thought, the sense of the eternal, con-
tempt for pettiness and nothingness. In that he is blood
brother to Handel. What would not these two together
have done, the Apollo of Weimar and the English
Hercules? This preference was undoubtedly detri-
mental to Beethoven, yet he would have been the first
to approve of it. It was not Beethoven's fault if he did
116 ^
not follow the same road as Handel. It was an ideal
which greatly attracted him, but which the tormented
soul of the man prevented his attaining. Besides, let
us make no mistake; for Goethe, too, Handel repre-
sented an ideal, whose faculty for abundant joyousness
in music and whose serene mind attracted him all the
more because he himself did not possess them, as he
told his friend Councillor von Muller. He compared
himself to Napoleon and contrasted himself with him:
Napoleon loved only tender and melancholy music
because these qualities were opposed and complemen-
tary to his own character. Goethe said that soft and
sentimental melodies depressed him: "I need lively
(Jrische) and energetic music to grip and uplift me.
Napoleon, who was a tyrant, needed softness in music.
I, for the very reason that I am not a tyrant, love lively,
gay, merry (rauschende, lebhajte, heitere) music.
Man aspires always to be what he is not." 150 Should we
therefore be justified in saying that in Beethoven he
avoided what he himself was . . . what he himself
did not desire to be? . . .
In his choir, in his home, he cultivated gay secular
music, folksong especially, and virile sacred music.
He was also very fond of string quartets; it was, indeed,
the form of instrumental music he liked best. Here
again he agreed with Beethoven whose real and csscn-
= 117
tial nature found expression from beginning to end in
the string quartet . . . The quadriga suited Apollo . . .
What Goethe derived above all from this form of
music was a pleasure founded on reason:
"I hear," he wrote to Zelter, "four people of good
sense discoursing together; I have the feeling that I
learn something from what they are saying, and I be-
come acquainted with the individuality of each of
them." 151
He disliked, however, the violent shocks which the
new instrumental music afforded. He must have con-
ceived it as an attack upon the liberty of the mind,
which is thus surprised and brutally violated. All that
the mind could not grasp thoroughly, all that he
summed up in the word ?neteorisches (of meteoric
quality), was suspect, even antagonistic to him. Very
probably, under this term he condemned, or at least
segregated, Weber's operas and some of Beethoven's
symphonies, the feasts of Dionysus, the orgies, the hur-
ricanes, as he called them.
His private choir lasted about seven or eight years
only. As in the theatre, he succumbed to the poison
of intrigue, to the petty quarrels of a vain and bicker-
ing horde whose habits Goethe so well knew (he de-
scribes them in masterly fashion in Wilhelm Meis-
ter), but who attracted him, nevertheless. After 1814
118 =
he kept only two or three of his singers, who had
become his personal friends.
At this moment, just as the springs of his musical
knowledge seemed to fail, his horizon was suddenly
widened enormously by his intercourse with Bach.
The Bachs were well known in Weimar where they
had neighbours and relatives. John Sebastian came to
Weimar on two occasions, once in 1703 for a few
months and then in 1708 for nine months, as organist
and Kapellmeister. His Weimar pupils maintained his
traditions in that town for half a century. 152 More-
over, the dowager duchess, who came from Bruns-
wick and was a good musician, had studied under
John Ernest Bach, of Eisenach, who had followed her
to Weimar. It is very probable that she often played
John Sebastian's works to Goethe.
Goethe must also have met many other admirers of
John Sebastian, for there were many of them in those
days: there was, for instance, young Count Wolf Bau-
dissin who used to say that he was ready to die for
Bach, much to Goethe's disgust. 153 Goethe's friend
Rochlitz, the historian of music, had in 1800 re-
minded the all-too-forgetful German people that the
last surviving daughter of Bach was living in utter
= 119
poverty, and had asked the public to send donations
for her: Beethoven was a warm supporter of this char-
itable appeal. Lastly Zelter had in 1810 given short
lectures to Goethe on John Sebastian and his great
rivals or forerunners. Goethe, therefore, was well in-
formed of Bach's importance, and of his place in the
evolution of music.
But the direct experience of Bach's music and the
definite impression it left on him he owed to his friend
the inspector of Berka Spa near Weimar, Johann Hein-
rich Friedrich Schiitz. This merry little fat man with
his rubicund face, and his top-hat set askew on his
head, was a passionate admirer of Bach. He had bought
bundles of manuscript music from John Sebastian's
last pupil, Kittell of Erfurt. This music he played to
Goethe, who was at once greatly impressed and re-
mained so to the end of his days, which shows that
his musical disposition was essentially serious. He was
never tired of hearing the "Well-tempered Clavi-
chord" and was always asking Schiitz to play him the
preludes and fugues. He likened them to "brilliant
mathematical works, the themes of which are so simple
and the poetical results are so magnificent." 154 From
that time Schiitz and Goethe met frequently. Either
one or the other would pay a visit to his friend in the
neighbouring town. The piano would at once be
120 =
opened, and inspired reason, in a never-ending stream
of music, would pour forth. In 1818 Goethe had this
music played to him for three or four hours a day for
three whole weeks. Referring to the perfect sense of
repose which this gave him, he used to say, "I go to
bed, and Schutz plays me Sebastian."
Schutz sometimes played well into the night. Goethe,
Zelter, and he often gave one another Bach's music as
presents, his chorales, for instance, and the "Well-
tempered Clavichord." It must also be mentioned to
Zelter's great credit that he was the first to revive the
Passion according to St. Matthew. He conducted it in
Berlin with his Singakademie, his regiment, as he
called it, with the support of young Mendelssohn. 155
Zelter's letters to Goethe frequently mentioned the
wonderful wealth of organ music which he had intro-
duced. 156 And Goethe's whole being vibrated in unison
with this mighty ocean, with its roar heard from afar. 157
Since for Goethe there was no musical enjoyment
in which reason did not share, his letters to Zelter fre-
quently show his scientific interest in Bach. Now he is
studying the second volume of Rochlitz's essays On
Bach's Compositions for the Keyboard (1825); now
he questions Zelter eagerly on the Couperins, and
their alleged influence on John Sebastian (1827).
= 121
His anthropocentric genius is always seeking the
principles of art and science in the laws which govern
the human body and its sensibilities. 158 In his study
of the relations of body and mind in music, he points
out the importance, as shown in Bach, of the foot and
of the hand in organ-playing. 159
Goethe saw far beyond John Sebastian and that pre-
classic age of which the men of letters and even the
musicians of his day knew so little. He was well ac-
quainted with the vocal polyphony of the sixteenth
century. He had discovered its beauty during his stay
in Rome in Lent, 1788, at the Sistine Chapel, and his
friend Christoph Kayser had helped him to under-
stand it. They had listened together assiduously to the
a cappella works by Palestrina, Morales, and Allegri.
In Milan they had studied the Ambrosian chants.
Goethe had also commissioned Kayser to make re-
searches into ancient music, because his intuition told
him that here was to be found the source of Christian
chants. 160 Later, when at Weimar Goethe attended the
Easter church services which were sung by the Greek
choir of the hereditary princes, he was struck by the
close relation between the Russian hymns and the Sis-
tine chants, and he asked Zelter to tell him something
of the origin of old Byzantine music. 161 But Zelter's
122 =
classical erudition was so poor that he did not even
know the meaning of the word "Byzantine." 162
In Rochlitz he would have found a musical guide of
much greater culture. But, in spite of his long connec-
tion with him, it seems as if Goethe feared to offend
his old friend Zelter if he summoned Rochlitz to
Weimar. 163 However, he read Rochlitz's books, and
especially during the latter part of his life, when he
went out less, he studied musical history assiduously
164
All this, however, did not satisfy his intellectual
hunger. In music, as in all other branches of knowl-
edge, his mind sought to deduce a scientific theory from
his experiences and the facts which came to his knowl-
edge. He sought to establish a Tonlehre (Theory of
Musical Sounds) as a parallel to his Earbenlehre (Col-
our Theory) . His aim was the discovery, in the multi-
plicity of phenomena, of the primitive and central
Unit, rt So muss das dies eins werden, dies aus Einem
entspringen und zu Einem zuruckkehren . . . (1810)
("So everything must become one, everything must
issue from one source, and must revert to it").
He found some eminent associates with whom to
discuss the problem of natural science in music: the
mathematician, Johann Friedrich Christian Verneburg
= 123
of Eisenach (about 1808-11), and the famous special-
ist in acoustics, Ernst Chladni of Wittenberg (between
1803 and 1816), whom he liked for his independence
of academic science. But his usual colleagues in these
discussions were his Zelter, who recited to him such
science as he had learnt by heart and whose schoolboy
creeds Goethe mercilessly crushed, and an intelligent
young man, Christian Schlosser; Goethe intended to
make the latter his musical secretary, to write, in ac-
cordance with the lines laid down by the master, the
Tonlehre, which he proposed to publish. Schlosser,
however, was not interested in this. Lacking his col-
laboration, Goethe was unable to carry out his plan,
but the scheme was never abandoned. 165 So keen was
his interest in it, that, as late as the year 1827, he had
the main lines of his Tonlehre written out elaborately
on a large sheet, which he framed and hung in his bed-
room. Although, according to his own admission, he
never got beyond the mere skeleton of this science, his
theories are considered worthy of discussion by some
authoritative writers on music of our present day. Hans
Joachim Moser published a monograph on Goethe und
die Musikalische Akustik™ and Hugo Riemann ex-
pressed his approval of Goethe's theories.
The problem which interested Goethe particularly,
and at which he worked till the eve of his death 167 was
124
that of the minor mode. He discussed it with Zelter
in 1808, 1810, and 1821, and with Schlosser in 1814-15.
Zelter's replies did not satisfy him at all, for Zelter
had recourse to explanations based on the physics of
music — i.e., the divisions of the string. The minor
third, according to him, was not a spontaneous mani-
festation of nature, but a product of art, derived from
the major third. Goethe disagreed entirely. It is human
nature, he said, which is the source of the musical
universe (Tonwelt) . It is in this direction that we must
search, and not experiment with artificial instruments
such as are used for mathematical tests. "What in-
deed is a string and its mechanical divisions, com-
pared with the musician's ear? We can go further and
say, What are natural phenomena compared with the
man who must first master and modify them all, in
order to be able, in a certain degree, to assimilate
them?" 168
His powerful subjectivism eagerly seized upon
Schlosser 's suggestion, that the two modes, major and
minor, are two different manifestations of the same
single Tonmonade — the living unit of sound. "If the
Tonmonade expands, the result is the major mode, if it
contracts, then the minor mode is produced."
The centre of the monad is formed by the deepest
sound, and the periphery by the highest. But Goethe
= 125
and Schlosser did not agree on the aesthetic and intel-
lectual value of the two modes. Schlosser, with a strong
inclination towards romantic religiosity, was of
the opinion that music's centre of gravity was to be
found in the melancholy of the soul which tends to
introspection, and withdraws from outside influ-
ences; the minor mode to him was the most intimate
expression of the human heart in its aspiration towards
the infinite. Goethe protested against this; he would
not allow that sadness is the centre of the soul and of
art. He was willing to admit that human nature has a
double tendency. On the one hand it seeks the objec-
tive, demands activity, and claims external things; on
the other it seeks the subjective, demands concentra-
tion, and claims those things which are within itself.
The major mode was the expression of all that excited,
exalted, and propelled the soul towards the outer
world. The minor mode was, perhaps, the mode of
concentration. But concentration was in no sense syn-
onymous with sadness. No, a thousand times no! What
sadness could there be in a polonaise that was in a
minor key ? These were popular dances, and those who
joined in them did so with an ardent desire to com-
mingle soul and body. Was this sadness or voluptuous-
ness? 109 (How fine it is to watch the vigorous old man
brush aside with a sweep of his hand all the mel-
126
ancholy of the effeminate romanticism which was to
come!)
But there is another example, and a much more in-
teresting one. I mean the Marseillaise, that Marseillaise
which Beethoven, in some inexplicable way, never
seems to have noticed and of which I cannot discover
a single trace in his work. How utterly unaware he was
of it is shown by the fact that, as late as 1813, he intro-
duced the grotesque Malbrouck march in his Battle of
Vittoria to represent his idea of the French. 170
Goethe had heard it on the battle field of the
Argonne, at Valmy and in Mainz, and he remained
under its stimulating influence for the whole of his
life. It is interesting to know that what impressed him
most, and what he remembered best, was the sombre
and menacing minor, the shadow, not the light. But
for him this shadow had nothing in common with a
depression of the spirit. It was, on the contrary, an
explosion of avenging fury. . . .
"I know nothing more terrible than military music
in a minor key. Here the two extremes clash, and
wound the heart instead of stunning it. The most re-
markable example of this is the Marseillaise."
"Dagegen ich nie etwas schrecklicheres gekannt habe
als einen kriegerischen Marsch aus dem Mollton. Hier
wirken die beiden Vole innerlich gegeneinander und
= 127
quetschen das Herz, anstatt es zu indifferenzieren. Das
eminenteste Beispiel gibt uns der Marseiller Marsch." 111
We see then how wide and prolonged Goethe's musi-
cal experience had been; he had played himself, he
had heard a great variety of musical performances, he
had meditated upon music, he had studied its history
and science. What then were his shortcomings, what
was there in the music of the time which escaped him?
Intellectually, very little indeed. The new tendencies
which were working in were felt by him as well
as by others. In June, 1805, when he was writing
a commentary on he Neveu de Rameau, he distin-
guished between two musical schools — the Italian,
essentially vocal and melodic, and the German, instru-
mental and harmonic — and he longed for the advent
of the master, who, uniting the two, should introduce
into instrumental music the forces of sentiment
(Gemiitskrafte). 112
He was right, and his conclusion should have been,
"The master has come ... he is Beethoven." But at
that time Goethe had not yet heard any of his music. 173
Did Goethe lay down any limits to the expressive
and descriptive powers of the art of sound? No; when
in 1818 Adalbert Schoepke asked him, "What are the
128 ^=
limits of expression in music?" Goethe answered, "It
is the great and noble privilege of music to create a
mood within us without using ordinary exterior means
for the purpose" ( fr Das Inner e in Stimmung zu setzen,
ohne die gemeinen ausseren Mittel zu brauchen, ist der
Musik grosses und edles Vorrecht") .
These are exactly Beethoven's principles, (f Mehr
Ausdruck der Empfindung als Mahler ei" (rather an
expression of feelings than a pictorial representation).
More than that, Goethe recognized that music is
privileged to go further than reason, and to penetrate
regions for ever closed to speech and analytic intelli-
gence. In his conversations with Eckermann on "de-
moniacal matters" ("das Damonische") he referred
to the unconscious or subconscious poetry, for the
comprehension of which intelligence and reason prove
insufficient, and continued:
"The same applies, in the highest degree to music,
because music occupies so lofty a plane that reason
cannot approach it; from music emanates an influence
which dominates all, an influence of which no man may
give an account" ("Desgleichen ist es in der Musik im
hbchsten Grade, denn sie steht so hoch dass kein Ver-
stand ihr beikommen kann, und es geht von ihr eine
Wirkung aus, die Alles beherrscht und von der Nie-
mand im Stand e 'ist, sich Rechenschajt zu geben") . 1U
=129
Is this not a confirmation of the exalted profession
of faith which Beethoven made to Bettina: 175
"Music is the single, the immaterial entry into a
higher world of knowledge which envelops man but
which he cannot understand."
It is indeed much that this master of intelligence,
the great Goethe, should at the close of his life recog-
nize the sovereign rights of musical intuition.
Would it then not have been possible for Beethoven
and Goethe to agree? What was the stumbling-block
to Goethe's musical understanding? As far as intellec-
tual understanding is concerned, there was none. But
his physiological tolerance failed him when those natu-
ral limits were reached which advanced age imposes
on organic sensitiveness. It was asking too much of a
man of the time of Cimarosa, Haydn, and Mozart to
share the feelings of the age of Weber, Schubert, and
Berlioz. 176 Is any one of us capable of a complete re-
juvenation after half a century of life? The only new
musical genius whom Goethe could normally have
adopted and incorporated in himself, during the cycle
of his life, was Beethoven. I have tried to explain the
reason why he failed to do so.
Certainly the greatness and the achievements of
Weber, Schubert, and Berlioz escaped him. It is of
130 =
interest, then, to examine more closely certain of these
failures in understanding, particularly in the case of
Schubert.
Schubert, in 1814, at the age of seventeen, had made
his first appearance and during the following year had
set to music some of Goethe's Lieder\ in 1816 he com-
posed his splendid Erl King, and asked the poet,
through his friend Spaun, for permission to dedicate
this work to him. Goethe did not reply; he had not
read it, for his time was entirely taken up with other
matters. And who was there to sing it to him? "Who
knew the name of "Schubert" in 1815 ?
His attitude of refusal was more serious when, ten
years later, on June 16, 1825, Goethe received on the
same day a quartet by Mendelssohn and the wonderful
melody, An Schwager Kronos, and two other songs,
An Mignon and Ganymed, by Schubert, with a very
respectful dedication to himself. Goethe mentioned
with satisfaction the gift from Mendelssohn, whom he
liked personally, but he never replied to Schubert. Is
there any excuse for this? Weimar's best musician,
Hummel, "discovered" Schubert only in 1827; Mari-
anna von Willemer, as always well in advance of
others, had been greatly impressed by the Lieder from
the Divan and had mentioned them to Goethe; she had
=131
forgotten only one detail in her letter, the composer's
name!
There is, however, proof that between 1825 and
1830 Goethe heard some of Schubert's most famous
Lieder, and that his first attitude was strong disap-
proval. One of the works was the Erl King. Can we
wonder? Goethe naturally judged it from the poet's
point of view. 177 He had written the poem as the simple
story told by a poor washerwoman, who hums it, almost
without giving a thought to the words; the song weaves
about her and her work an atmosphere of popular
fantasy. . . . Goethe was now presented with a melo-
dramatic piece full of theatrical effects — raging temp-
ests and so on. . . . He was annoyed with the light-
ning flashes, and the rolling thunder, so out of all
proportion to his simple idyll. He saw in the song
merely lack of intelligence and exaggeration. He
shrugged his shoulders. . . . We can hear Zelter scoff-
ing at Beethoven, "Those people use the club of
Hercules to kill a fly!"
If there was one vice in art which Goethe could not
tolerate, it was the ff Non erat is locus" ("Out of place") .
But though he grumbled to his heart's content at the
liberty which the composer had taken with his work,
could he not have risen above it and been artist enough
132 ^^
to see the beauty of the music, even if its effect differed
from his own conception?
He did recognize it. When, on April 24, 1830, Wil-
helmine Schroder-Devrient came to his house and sang
the Erl King, he was moved to the very fibres of his
being, and he was noble enough to make his mea culpa
to the spirit of Schubert. He said: "I had already
heard this song, and it meant nothing to me. But sung
like this, it conjures up a great picture before my eyes."
And he kissed the forehead of the inspiring singer.
Similarly, a month later (May 25) he had at last to
bow his head, whether he liked it or not, before the
elemental force of the C Minor Symphony, which Men-
delssohn unrolled before him.
At the age of eighty-one he had still sufficient vigour
to cross the mighty ravine which Beethoven and Schu-
bert had cleft, as it were, in the road of his musical
appreciation. Is this not an achievement? None could
say that in him old age had frozen the stream of life.
Which of us at his age would keep so open a mind and
display such energy?
Of Berlioz Goethe knew nothing. Zelter's abomina-
ble letter, in which he poured a stream of the vilest
invective on Berlioz's Eight Scenes from Faust, had dis-
gusted him for ever with this style of composition
(June, 1829).
= 133
In conclusion, Weber. Here Goethe's lack of ap-
preciation was due fundamentally to the personal
antipathy of which I have already written, and to the
old man's intolerance of the din of brasses and percus-
sion instruments which were then a novel feature of
orchestration. Even Spontini, whom Goethe held in
particularly high esteem, upset him with his noisy
orchestration of his Vestale. "This noise," he told
Christian Lobe, "quickly tires me" {ntich bald
ermudet). To which Lobe replied that one got used
to it as one got used to Mozart, who at first proved
very tiring.
"But there must be a limit," Goethe went on, "be-
yond which one cannot go without injury to the ear."
"No doubt there is," replied the young man. "But
the fact that most people can now listen to Spontini,
seems to prove that this limit has not yet been reached."
And Goethe, faced with the fact, admitted that it
might be so ( ff £j mag sein").
But this was in truth the whole point, and this was
the real reason of the dignus intrare, which he granted,
or refused, to new works of art, "There must be a
limit. ..." Yes. But where is it? Nothing is more
natural than that in 1829 the aged Goethe and his old
friend Zelter should have found that the new music
134 ==
had exceeded this limit, not only in the means which
it employed, but also in its portrayal of emotion.
"It exceeds the level of human sensibility. We can
no longer follow it either in thought or action."
("Alles ist jetzt ultra. Alles transzendiert unauf-
haltsam an Denken und Tun . . .").
Just as our pre-war generation judges the youth of
today, so Goethe deplored that, long before maturity,
the younger generation had been shaken to the roots,
"that the whirlwind of the times had carried it away"
before quiet and meditation had had time to restore to
it balance of personality. The year 1830, as Goethe
saw it, was already given over to the turmoil of dis-
cordance and erratic action for which we blame — or
for which we praise — the year 1930. In reality it is
the periodical conflict of two successive stages of sen-
sitiveness, a conflict which follows unceasingly a curve
of regular progression, without, however, passing cer-
tain limits; for, as the curve rises, the lower parts
gradually vanish, the sensitiveness of former periods
disappears; it is, as it were, a new keyboard, which has
the same number of octaves as the old. But, while the
structure remains the same, the mentality which is
housed in it shifts from one level to another. And as
organic tolerance thus moves with the times, those who
live longer than the normal span of life are bound to
j =135
suffer from variations in the rhythm and in the intensity
of their sensations. They cannot acclimatize themselves
to the new conditions.
The onward march of the generations is strictly nor-
mal. Goethe at the beginning of his artistic career had
heard in 1763 the playing of the child Mozart. Just
before his death he had listened to little Clara Wieck
(October 4 and 5, 1831), who was to become Schu-
mann's wife and muse. 178 He had withstood with a
magnificent strength the strain induced by the conflict
of two epochs so different in character.
Our survey of Goethe's musical disposition would be
far from complete if we merely considered its passive
side — hearing and understanding. A powerful nature,
a mind such as his, receives nothing without restoring
it enriched and ennobled. Wherever Goethe passed, he
created.
As, however, he was not a musician by profession,
but a poet, it is interesting to discover what traces
music has left in his poetic creations.
The first trace is his keen desire to write libretti: the
importance which Goethe attributes to this, and the
tenacity with which he persevered in it, rather surprises
us. This inclination of his may almost be compared to
136 ^^
the great passion which Ingres, the famous painter, had
for his violin. 179 Many hours, many days were given to
this work; his efforts and his researches deserved a
nobler object and a more striking success.
Goethe sketched or attempted one form of musical
play after the other. In 1766, in early youth, he wrote
a libretto for an Italian operetta, La Sposa Rapita. 180
Then followed the German Sings pi el (ballad opera) ,
or the Lusts piel (prose comedy), to which he added
arias and Lieder\ in 1773-74 he wrote his Erwin und
Elmire, for which Johann Andreas Offenbach com-
posed the score. Later in life, as we have seen, he was
considering the possibility of a dramatic-musical col-
laboration with Gluck, and when the old man did not
receive him kindly he chose a young and gifted musi-
cal friend, Christoph Kayser, whom he hoped to shape
in accordance with his views. At the same time, with
his friend, Korona Schroter, he mastered the art of the
ballet and devised new forms (1782). During the first
period of his life at Weimar everything that he wrote
was intended for accompaniment by instrumental or
vocal music. A good example of this is his Proserpina,
2l monodrama, spoken to music, after the style of
Rousseau (1776). Another example is his Lila, a fairy
opera. It was then that he studied Handel's and
Gluck's declamatory style. His plans, however, could
= 137
not be fully carried out in Weimar, because he lacked
the cooperation of a competent musician.
In 1779-80 he went with his grand duke to Switzer-
land. His chief motive for going was the hope of meet-
ing Kayser again, who had settled in Zurich, and of
writing with him a Sings pi el on a Swiss subject. This
was Jery und Bately. His letters to Kayser give us a
very clear definition of the music which he wanted.
This time it was Quinault who gave orders to Lulli.*
For this play Goethe wanted three distinct kinds of
music:
1. Folk songs.
2. Emotional airs.
3. Music to accompany dialogue, adapted to the
miming of the actors.
This dialogue must preserve a unity of style, which
should be based, if possible, on a principal theme and
developed by modulations, modes and rhythms, but it
should never lose its logical sense and its outline, which
must be simple and clear. "The dialogue must be like
a smooth golden ring, in which the airs and Lieder are
set like precious stones" ( fr Der Dialog muss wie ein
glatter goldener Ring sein, auf dem Arien und Lieder
wie Edelgesteine aufsitzen") . m
* Translator's Note. — Lulli, the court musician of Louis XIV, was
accustomed to prescribe to Quinault, a poet of merit, the subject and treat-
ment of the libretti which he required for his operas.
138 ^^
The composer, so Goethe maintained, must absotb
thoroughly the character of the piece. This general
character should dictate the style of all the melodies
and accompaniments. The orchestra should be quite
small, and the accompaniment not overpowering. "The
riches of music lie in discretion. A composer who
knows his work can do more with two violins, a viola,
and a bass, than others with a whole orchestra." The
wood-wind should be what spice is to a dish. The
instruments should be used one by one: now the flute,
now the oboe, now the bassoon. In this way the purity
of the music will give the greater pleasure. Most mod-
ern composers, on the contrary, serve everything to-
gether, with the result that fish and meat, whether
roasted or boiled, taste the same. 182
Goethe, however, was then only at the beginning of
his misunderstandings with Kayser. The latter worked
so slowly at his composition, that Goethe had to take
the play from him and give it to another composer, the
nobleman in charge of the amusements at the Court of
Weimar. Finally he lost all interest in the matter.
Nevertheless, Goethe did not give up hope of
Kayser. He had him invited to Weimar. In vain did he
try to make a man of the world of him, in vain did he
persuade him to take to heart the last teachings of
Gluck, just before the latter 's death. In vain — all in
^139
vain! Yet in 1783 he wrote the libretti for five ballad
operas (Siugspiele). 183
Some time afterwards he heard a good Italian com-
pany and at once abandoned the hybrid form of spoken
dialogue mixed with comic-opera songs, and decided
to write, still with Kayser's cooperation, short operet-
tas, entirely sung, and opera buff a. For five years, from
1784 to 1789, he worked at an operetta, with three
characters — Scapin, Scapine, and the doctor — "Scherz,
List und Racbe" ("J est > Cunning, and Vengeance").
On this subject he corresponded with Kayser almost
as widely as he corresponded with Schiller on the sub-
ject of Wilhelm Meister. All the evidence goes to
show that he attached far greater importance to the
subject than it really deserved. He desired to create in
Germany a new kind of dramatic-musical art, and he
wanted the first production of the kind to be a master-
piece. But apart from the fact that he had no adequate
helper and had to do practically the whole of the musi-
cian's work as well as his own, it was an art of which
he knew nothing; he had to learn as he worked — Fit
jabricando jaber. Unfortunately, the knowledge which
he gathered while working was acquired too late: it
showed him his errors only after they had been com-
mitted. When he saw Mozart's // Seraglio, in 1785, he
realized his weak points, but too late. Mozart, without
140 ^^
Goethe's preliminary process of thought, but from
sheer instinct, from the impulse of genius, had given the
German theatre a comedy with music, full of feeling,
sparkling with joy, like the rain and sunshine of a
lovely day in spring. Thus Goethe discovered the utter
sterility of the intellectual perfection which he had
conceived in a work so deeply — all too deeply —
thought out. There were only three characters in the
four acts, all three of them rogues. He now decided to
have seven characters and to give emotion a large part
in the plot. But a casting which is almost cold cannot
be remoulded; Kayser had already shaped himself in
the first mould, had lost all elasticity, and could not
follow the constant changes of his great collaborator's
mind. The final result was an unheard-of waste of
time, and an enormous amount of work expended for
no result. In autumn, 1789, Goethe, honest as always,
surveyed his past efforts and admitted, "All this
tremendous work is lost" ^Geht die ungeheure Arbeit
verloren"). 184
Of these ruins the most enduring relic is perhaps his
correspondence with Kayser, in which we find a power-
ful and striking aesthetic idea of the theatre. Goethe
insisted that everything in this work should be "salta-
tio," 1HS which he described to Kayser as a continuous
= 141
melodic and rhythmic movement. He mentioned this
repeatedly:
"My highest conception of drama is action without
interruption" (J'Mein hochster Be griff vom Drama ist
rastlose Handlung").
Here again Goethe nearly went too far in his con-
ception of intellectual perfection. But he pulled him-
self up. His knowledge of the psychology of the public,
all the keener for his experience of the theatre and of
actors, showed him that it was impossible to realize
such a plan. Human nature would not lend itself to it.
Goethe came to the conclusion that repose must alter-
nate with movement, and that the climax of movement
and of sound must be reserved for the end of the
piece. It was what the masters of Italian farcical opera
[opera buff a) had already done by instinct.
Goethe also gave much time to the careful study of
poetical rhythm in comedy set to music. In this he did
not follow the Italian example. Instead of adopting
their even, flowing phrases, so well suited to melody,
he broke them whenever the action became passionate.
His ideal of those days was very Mozartian and had
nothing academic or pompous about it; he wished to
create an ensemble of beauty, movement, and life. This
is why he was bored by the insipid Italian grand opera,
so cold, so restricted, so grandiloquent. Soon after his
142 ^^
arrival in Rome he wrote: "I am too old for every-
thing except for what is true" (J r Auch da hob' ich
wieder gejiihlt, dass ich fur Alles zu alt bin, nur fur's
Wahre nicht").
Hence his enjoyment of farcical opera, the vivid and
unsullied outpouring of the Italian nature. His dream
was to bring Moses' staff with him to Germany, the
staff which would bring forth water from the rock.
Mozart could do it. . . . But Mozart was unique and
was soon to die. Ah, why did Goethe wait so long?
Why did he not go to him at once? Why did he per-
sist, for fifteen long years, in clinging to his Kayser
and trying to shape him according to his will ? Kayser
was no doubt a worthy man, very dignified, highly
moral, religious to the point of renunciation, 186 a good,
well-trained musician, but desperately slow — a shadow
which vanished into nothing in the light of Goethe,
the sun. 187
In 1789, Kayser definitely retired into his solitude at
Zurich, where he remained till his death in 1823.
Goethe was faithful to his memory, and never forgot
the sorrow which Kayser's abdication caused him.
But this disastrous experience, although it lasted fif-
teen years, did not discourage him. No sooner did a
= 143
new collaborator appear than Goethe at once resumed
his great schemes for musical drama. This time he
worked with Friedrich Reichardt of Konigsberg, a
brilliant and intelligent man, active, brimming with
energy, inventiveness, warmth, and life — the very op-
posite of Kayser. It was not Goethe who had to go
after the musician. Reichardt came and came again; he
wrote and wrote again; he gave Goethe no peace.
Together with Johann Abraham Schulz, Reichardt
had founded in Berlin the splendid Lieder school which
in the course of thirty years blossomed over the whole
of Germany. . . . The principle of the school was that
"the composer's music must interpret the poet's words."
Word and sound, phrase and melody, must be one.
These were indeed Goethe's own views.
Since 1780 Reichardt had been passionately fond of
Goethe's poems, which he was always setting to music.
Many of his inspirations were delightful; after a cen-
tury and a half they still preserve their delicate per-
fume. With a deep understanding of Goethe's artistic
ideas he had an accurate touch for his declamatory
passages. In the same scene he would alternate, with
the happiest results, instrumental passages and decla-
mation, pass on to the sung recitative and then to the
aria, of which he varied the rhythm and the expressive
character. He begged Goethe to write an operatic
144 ^^
libretto, and the poet, encouraging him, conceived the
idea of a lyric drama, the characters of which would be
inspired by Ossianic lore. He intended to incorporate
in this work the Norse mythology and the Sagas.
"I have already formed a plan, of which I will tell
you when you come again." 188
I like to imagine the Norns beginning to weave in
the Olympian's brain the destiny threads of the Wan-
derer in Wagner's Ring. . . , 189
He resumed at the same time the subject of the
Queen's Necklace, and made of it a light opera in three
acts — "Die Mystifizierten."
In Venice he met his composer again, and Reichardt
did not allow the promise of an opera libretto to grow
cold. But Goethe's interest had waned. At this time the
demon of natural science was beginning to obsess him,
and he had no longer any inclination for these things
( rr Kein Gemut zu allem diesem IVesen"). However,
Reichardt kept close to his heels, and so Goethe re-
turned to Fingal and Ossian. But nothing was to come
of it. An evil fate pursued both poet and composer.
Reichardt, whose sympathy with the French Revolu-
tion had made him impossible at the court of Berlin,
lost his position as Hofkapellmeister, a. post which gave
him every opportunity of producing music-drama. And
although Goethe had become, in 1791, the Oberdirek-
= 145
tor of the Weimar theatre, his provincial stage lacked
the necessary equipment for such performances.
He could not even perform his ballad operas there,
nor had he any hope of having an opera performed
on any other German stage. Now Goethe would never
write a theatrical work in abstractor without knowing
beforehand the theatre, the actors, and the public for
whom the work was intended. He therefore abandoned
all idea of this work and buried himself in science
(Farbenlehre, 1792). Besides this, the events of the
time demanded imperiously that the "toga should yield
to arms." He left for the campaign against France. 190
On his return, his friendship with Reichardt, the
friend of France, the Jacobin, cooled considerably, and
under the influence of Schiller became a distressing
enmity after the year 1795. 191
Zelter replaced Reichardt. In 1796 he commenced
his work on Goethe's Lieder. Their correspondence
began in 1799, and from the beginning of their friend-
ship they found that they were in closest sympathy. As
early as 1798, Goethe said that Zelter's Lieder were a
faithful reproduction of his poetic intentions" (^'eine
radikale Reproduktion der poetischen Intentionen") . 192
In 1799 he said, in a letter to him, that while it was
true that he had inspired melodies in Zelter, it was no
146 ^=
less true that Zelter's melodies had inspired him to
write more than one Lied. "I feel certain that if we
were living together I would be in a more lyric mood
than I am at present."
Had Goethe then, at the age of fifty, found at last
his musical collaborator, of whom he had dreamt so
often?
No. He was only to meet new disappointments of
which he never spoke; for Goethe never complained to
others, and always buried his sorrows within himself.
God knows he was not spared many.
There is no doubt that in Zelter he found his most
faithful, affectionate, and devoted friend, a friend who,
as it were, took root in him, derived from him all the
joy of living, and died when Goethe died. 193 No doubt
also this musician became the most accurate interpreter
of the ideas in Goethe's Lieder, so accurate that, as he
told Goethe, "there was no need for him to search for
new melodies; all he had to do was to find those which
were already in the poet's mind unknown to him." 194
Zelter, however, failed to understand Goethe's most
persistent dream, to create, in collaboration with a
musician, great epic and dramatic works. It is possible
that Zelter, realizing that he was incapable of carrying
these schemes into effect, merely pretended incompre-
= 147
hension. It was a perpetual misunderstanding. In 1799
Goethe sent Zelter his First Walpurgis Night, and out-
lined to him his scheme of composing great dramatic
ballads. Zelter, instead of taking advantage of the occa-
sion, asked Goethe to write him an opera libretto. Some
time before Goethe had thought of writing a Greek
tragedy with choruses, The Danaides\ but he aban-
doned all idea of it. Zelter's dramatic collaboration
was limited to some incidental music for Egmont and
Gotz von Berlichingen, at Weimar. Some years later
Zelter again asked for a text for an opera, and sug-
gested as a subject, "Hercules" or "Orpheus." The idea
of setting to music the first Faust, published in 1808,
never occurred to him, this task being left to Prince
Radziwill. 105 In vain did Goethe ask him to compose
at least the music for some of the songs, for instance,
the magnificent chorus of spirits, "Schwindet ihr
Dunkeln" ("Vanish, dark spirits"), when some scenes
from Faust were performed at Weimar at the end of
1810. Zelter found some excuse for avoiding the task.
Thus the unfortunate Goethe was compelled to have
recourse to his willing musical factotum, Eberwein, the
conductor of his little private choir, who as a composer
was below mediocrity. Goethe at first tried him in his
monodrama Proserpina, and in 1814 he discussed
148 ^=
Faust with him. He went to the trouble of doing all
the preparatory work: he shortened the first mono-
logues, shortened the scene with Wagner, changed the
whole beginning up to the end of the Easter chorus,
"Euch ist der Meister nah, Euch ist er da" ("The Master
is near you, he is here") , into a single scene in mono-
logue, interrupted only by the apparition of the Spirit
of the Earth (Erdgeist) , and the choruses. He decided
that Faust's words should have a soft musical accom-
paniment, that the approach and the apparition of the
Spirit of the Earth were to be treated melodramatically,
and that the Easter chorus should be melodious. Eber-
wein could not understand how music could be intro-
duced into the piece. Goethe made patient efforts to
explain the poem to him, induced him to feel the very
pulse of the music, tried to make him realize the
atmosphere of mystery which pervades Faust's magic
laboratory when he opens the book of Nostradamus.
. . . Eberwein could not grasp it . . . 198 and Goethe
gave it up . . . (spring, 1815).
Next year he formed the great project of which we
have already spoken, the oratorio which would stand
side by side with the Messiah? 91 Zelter was to write
the music, and it was to be given at the jubilee of the
Reformation. But the realization of such a work soon
= 149
proved to be hopeless. Zelter was utterly unable to cope
with it . . . and Goethe gave it up. . . . (1816). 198
How many times had Goethe to renounce his hopes!
And there, close at hand, was Beethoven, who would
have been only too glad to work with him and for him,
to set Faust to music, 109 and to write, at his dictation, an
oratorio after the great example of Handel!
The last blow came in February, 1816, when he
wished to present at his theatre a play specially written
to celebrate the German victory, Des Epimenides Er-
wachen ("The Awakening of Epimenides"); and the
musicians, his musicians, scoffed at the work and at
him! They had not even the decency to hide it from
him. Goethe was deeply hurt. He declared that from
that day on he would never permit in Weimar the
performance of any new music written for his poems.
It was the end of forty years' laborious efforts to wed
his poetry to music on the stage. It was a complete and
humiliating defeat. 200
But if the theatre was denied him, if, tired and dis-
appointed, he refused to visit it except on rare occa-
sions, Goethe had still not given up his cherished
dream; far from it, for he concentrated on it within
himself, on the stage of his own thoughts. He created
150 =
his own theatre, in perfect freedom, his own invisible
opera, his great lyric drama. He gave us the second
Faust.
There is no doubt of this; we are not putting for-
ward a hypothesis; they are his own words.
It was into this stream of thought that Goethe,
throughout his life, directed the torrents of poetry and
music which flooded his subconscious being. His aim
was that stage representation should include every
musical resource — instrumental music, solo voices,
choruses as well as scenery. Speaking to Eckermann, 2ffl
Goethe stated, forcibly:
"The first part of Faust can only be entrusted to the
greatest tragedians. Then, in the operatic part (tm
Telle der Oper), the different characters must be in
the hands of the finest singers. The role of Helen can-
not be played by one artist; two great artists are re-
quired for this, for it is very rare that a singer is at the
same time a tragedian of the first rank."
But where could a composer be found who com-
bined, in accordance with Goethe's express wish, "the
German natural characteristics with the Italian style"
( f 'welch >er seine deutsche Natur mit der italienischen
Art und Welse verbande"} ? A second Mozart? . . .
Goethe did not appear to be very anxious to find him.
It looks as if his ambition to see the actual realization
= 151
of this great work had diminished almost to vanishing-
point. When Eckermann showed signs of impatience,
he answered, calmly:
"Let us wait 202 and see what the gods will send us in
due time. Such things must not be hurried. The time
will come when the significance of this work will be-
come manifest to mankind, and when directors of
theatres, poets, and composers will take advantage
of it."
He showed no interest in the result. He no longer
desired to see the great work on the stage. In his mind
he had already seen it. 203
Thus ended a life's effort to create a new type of
theatre. Renunciation and introspection were all that
remained.
But the second Faust gained by this very fact a far
greater value; it was the outcome and the combination
of all the dreams of poetry and music which Goethe
had accumulated on the stage of his inmost self. How
full of light becomes this immense work, which baffled
all the critics of the time and broke with all traditional
forms! ... It is a universe in the first stages of crea-
tion, when the Spirit moves upon the face of the waters,
awaiting the "Let there be light," — the light of the
second Goethe, the musician. 204
I do not wish, however, in writing thus, to convey the
152 ^=
impression that the second Faust is, in my opinion,
merely a gigantic libretto. A libretto is only half a
poem. A work by Goethe, even when written for music,
is in itself more than a poem. It already contains its
music. As Goethe said in the lines which I quoted at
the beginning of this essay, ef Nur nicht lesen, immer
singen!" ("Never read, always sing"). The poem is,
in itself, a song, but it is much more besides: it is an
orchestra. In Faust, Parts I and II, Goethe's work is
such that it suggests fairy stories of the romantic period
in their instrumental setting. It is Wagnerian, and even
surpasses the Wagnerian idea.
Philip Spitta has described it well. Goethe, whose
aging senses could not respond to the new music,
such as Beethoven, Schubert, and Weber, was never-
theless the creator of the poetical world which they
illuminated and painted in music. Poetically, he created
a music which was even greater than theirs. No musical
genius ever did, or ever will express in a Lied certain
Lieder by Goethe, which in two lines express the
infinite.
"Ueber alien Gipjeln
1st Rub . . ."
"Was . . .
durch das Labyrinth der Brust
Wand el t in der Nacht ..."
1
7 ^' i
' ofhi .
Y,
■U-< * ■ ««■ ••:«
'■'^
= 153
"They are too musical to be set to music," said
Spitta, profoundly. Only in instrumental music could
the expression of such thought be attempted. But even
then it would be merely the creation of an atmosphere,
a circumambience magical, but, alas, empty. The
mighty waves of light which rise and fall on the ocean
of sound will always lack the single utterance which
should capture them, making them one with the spirit.
Goethe created a Sprachmusik (music of speech)
and he was its master. When he reigned over his little
company of actors in Weimar he made them go
through a very strict course of "musical speech." This
was particularly the case at the beginning of the cen-
tury, from 1800 to 1807, and it could almost be said
that during that time his company was under Goethe's
conductor's baton. This is not a metaphor, for when
conducting the rehearsals of plays he actually used a
baton to indicate rhythm and speed of speech. Like
Schiller, Goethe was in arms against the "realist"
school and held that tragedy should be modelled on
opera. He conceived his company of actors as an or-
chestra, in which every player subordinates himself to
the ensemble and plays his part punctiliously.
He made Wilhelm Meister express his ideas on this
subject in his speech to the comedians. 205 "In a sym-
phony no player would think of accompanying loudly
154
another player's solo; each endeavours to play in ac-
cordance with the spirit and intentions of the composer,
and to give a perfect rendering of the part entrusted to
him, whether it be important or not. Should we not
work with the same precision, with the same intelli-
gence, we who cultivate an art far more elusive than
any form of music, for the reason that we have to
portray, with taste and understanding, not only
the commonest but also the rarest features in human
life?"
Wilhelm, thanks to his duke's favour, was to his
great delight, master of Philine and the theatrical com-
pany.* But his delight did not last long, for Philine
became the duke's mistress and the comedians covered
him with ridicule. Nevertheless, he carried out his
ideas. He conducted the actors as a Kapellmeister con-
ducts his singers and his orchestra. 206 He insisted upon
strict adherence to his tempi, and his light and
shade: forte, piano, crescendo, diminuendo. In 1803
Goethe put his ideas into definite form, in his Rules
for Actors (Regeln fur Schauspieler). In these he de-
scribed declamation as a "prose-music" 207 ( tf eine pro-
saische Tonkunst"). In the producer's copy of his
Bride of Messina he annotated the text, like a musical
score:
* Translator's Note. — Wilhelm Mcister is really Goethe himself.
= 155
— Here, whispering softly (halblaut rauschend).
— Here, clearer with more sound (heller, klmgender).
— Here, dully (dumpf).
— Here, deep and awestruck (tief, schauerlich) \
— Here, in a different tempo, much quicker (muss ein
anderes, v'tel schnelleres Tempo gewahlt werderi) .
These indications, however, did not satisfy him. He
wanted one of Maelzel's mettonomes, such as Bee-
thoven and the musicians of his time had. For his
"music-speech" school he compiled a whole table of
"bars" in which the time-length of each word and each
pause was given. He even drew a diagram, giving in
millimeters, the duration for each punctuation sign.
This fondness for rules and for typically German
discipline, threatened at times to kill his creative im-
pulse. The poet cannot hide the drill sergeant! We
might suppose that such a method would lead to the
mechanical movements of a regiment drilled at a word
of command. 208 But Anton Genast tells us that the
great instructor used these methods only with beginners
156 ^^
and gradually gave them a free hand, as they became
masters of their technique. 209
His actors, however, were not alone in being com-
pelled to submit to the methods of the conductor of
an orchestra. Goethe, the master-poet, himself sub-
mitted in his creations to the spirit of music. When
his poetical genius had reached full maturity (1796-
1806) he sometimes wrote down, before beginning the
actual composition of the poem, in words which had
neither sequence nor sense, the sound effects and the
rhythm of the lines. When rhymesters would reproach
him for disregarding the traditional rules of metre and
rhyme, he would reply:
"Let me enjoy the music of it" ("Lass mich des-
Gesanges gemessen").
But this music was not music as conceived by musi-
cians. It was Goethe's ambition to create a new order
of music, his own personal achievement, 210 and to estab-
lish a form which he considered superior to music with-
out words. When he had drunk his £11 of ordinary
music the poet-king would raise the sceptre, which he
had never for a moment laid aside.
"The beauty of perfected human speech (Rede)"
he told Knebel, "is far greater than that of song. There
is nothing we can compare to it: its inflections and
modulations (Abwechslungen und Mannigfaltig-
= 157
keiten) in the expression of our feelings {Gemiit} are
infinite in number. 211 Song must return to simple
speech, when the greatest dramatic and emotional
heights are to be attained. All the great composers have
noticed this."
Music was never to him what it is to great musicians,
namely the means of perfecting speech. It is the poet's
words which perfect music.
In this both musician and poet are right, if in each
case the result is a work of genius, for it absorbs the
whole of the world within them, the total ego. The
proportions of the elements employed by the ego for
its conception and self-expression may vary, but the
sum total remains the same. A Goethe is a musician in
poetry, just as a Beethoven is a poet in music. 212 Those
who are only musicians, those who are only poets, are
but minor princes, whose powers do not extend beyond
the borders of their little provinces. But Goethe and
Beethoven are emperors of the soul of the whole uni-
verse
BETTINA
SILHOUETTE OF GOETHE BEFORE THE BUST OF A DEAD FRIEND (ABOUT 1780)
BETTINA
During the short time which has elapsed since the pub-
lication, as a serial, of my first studies on Goethe and
Beethoven, the biography of Bettina has been enriched
by new documents, which shed further light on her
interesting and many-sided personality. The principal
source has at last been tapped. The private archives
of Wiepersdorf , the family home of the Arnims, where
Bettina's letters had been collected, were jealously
guarded by her second son, Siegmund, a companion of
Bismarck in his young days and an ultra-conservative,
who would not allow any outsider to see his treasure;
they were opened, after his death, to a privileged few
who were allowed to make a careful scrutiny of Bet-
tina's correspondence with Goethe. 213 But a vast num-
ber of letters, sketches and drafts remained untouched.
161
162 ^^
In 1929 the whole collection was sold. Public opinion
in Germany, roused by this dispersal of historic docu-
ments, induced private munificence to provide the
means of buying up almost immediately and classifying
the nucleus of this correspondence, namely all that
refers to Goethe; nevertheless many manuscripts were
scattered to the four winds. We have been able to dis-
cover from the catalogues of antiquaries some of the
secrets of the "Goethe-Bettina" enigma. The curtain
has been lifted, in part at least, especially on those days
in Teplitz, in August, 1810, of which I have written in
my first essay, and which must have left on Bettina's
mind a far deeper impression than it was wise for
Goethe to arouse.
Before quoting here a very intimate letter, over
which, as it seems to me, the piety of Goethe's admirers
has drawn a veil — a veil which has scarcely been raised
— I must recall in a few words to the reader, who may
not be so well instructed in this true romance as are the
Germans, the principal stages in Bettina's passion for
Goethe.
It is indeed a strange and mysterious story, a life's
dream, from which the heroine could never free her-
self, even for a moment. It is a case of invincible auto-
suggestion, a destiny ordained, as it were, at birth, and,
E 163
as Bettina would have told us, a reincarnation of love
beyond the grave.
Her mother, Maximiliana La Roche, a beautiful
woman, native of the Rhine Provinces, was loved by
Goethe when he was twenty-three and she was sixteen
(1772-73). This love was not a passing infatuation,
but Maximiliana, obedient to her parents' wish, mar-
ried a merchant named Brentano and settled in Frank-
furt, where Bettina was born on April 4, 178 5. 214
After her mother's premature death in 1793, Bettina
was brought up in a convent, where the works of poets
were not accessible to her. So she was seventeen before
she read Goethe's poems, which at first she did not
understand. 215 During the years which followed, how-
ever, she came by degrees to appreciate their charm,
and her disposition, which was wholesome, fresh, and
spontaneous, set her apart from the malevolent pru-
dishness of Cassel society, the people who expressed
disgust at Egmont's "vulgarities" and at the poet's
"platitudes." This innocent attraction for Goethe had,
however, no personal character, until that fateful day
in June, 1806, when, at her father's house in Offenbach,
she discovered by chance eighty-four letters from
Goethe to her grandmother, Sophie La Roche, written
between 1772 and 1775, full of the young man's adora-
tion of her mother.
164 ^^
This revelation had an overwhelming effect on the
young girl. She copied the whole correspondence sev-
eral times. (One of these copies was sold by auction
last year. ) She learnt them by heart. And this sensitive
dreamer, to whose burning eyes the beauties of nature
were an open book, bore henceforth upon her heart the
impress of Goethe's young love. This may justly be
termed, speaking scientifically, a phenomenon of ob-
session, which nothing could efface; it was beautiful,
it was touching, but it had its dangerous side.
On October 21, 1809, she wrote to Goethe, in a
state of melancholy ecstasy:
"I really believe that I have inherited this feeling
from my mother. She must have known (erkannt) you
intimately. She must have possessed (genossen) you
fully when I was coming into the world. ..."
What was her thought? That she was Goethe's
daughter ( ff das Kind") ? 216 Perhaps. But she certainly
imagined that she was the child of his lov e, and that
this love returning from beyond the grave to Goethe
the beloved, to Goethe the lover — had taken upon
itself her bodily presence.
This love-stricken folly found forthwith the environ-
ment in which it could best thrive. In the same month
in which she discovered the correspondence she has-
tened to Goethe's mother, Aja, who, when she spoke
= 165
of her "little boy," was as exaggeratedly sensitive as
Bettina. She declated that she was cmelly sepatated
ftom him by the distance ftom Ftankfutt to Weimat —
aaually only a few houts — but to her an eternity. . . .
The two love-stricken women, the old and the young,
both full of fantastic ideas, both warm-hearted, found
in the love of their common idol the path to each
other's affection.
The old woman poured into the girl's ear a never-
ending stream of gossip, her triumphant recollections
of the child Goethe, which Bettina drank in like
parched soil under a shower. We can imagine how, in
such circumstances, the obsession took root and
flourished.
In the following spring she paid her first visit to
Goethe (April 23, 1807). ... In those days travel
was no easy matter; war was raging throughout the
country. In order to accompany her brother-in-law,
Jordis, from Cassel to Berlin, whence they proceeded
later to Weimar, she and her sister had donned
men's clothes. It reminds us of a scene from As You
Like It. Finally Bettina arrived alone, her heart
beating violently, almost fainting with emotion, at
Goethe's door. She had a letter of introduction from
Wieland, who presented her as the daughter and
granddaughter of beloved friends who were no more.
166 =
Shall I describe this well-known meeting once again?
It has been told so well by Fritz Bergmann, who, after
a careful scrutiny of the somewhat embellished account
of the incident which Bettina gave later, has verified
the essential points, and has with delicacy expressed her
emotion. Both the old man and the young woman
shared it. For him, what a flood of remembrances: it
was indeed the beloved dead who came to see him.
. . . For her, what a mingled torrent of joy and fear:
she stood tongue-tied, at one moment overcome, at
another peacefully content. There followed a strange
reaction, at which some have foolishly sneered, though
it was the most natural in the world; exhausted with
emotion, the young girl lost consciousness and fell
asleep on Goethe's knees, in his arms. 217 The fainting
fit lasted but a few moments. Goethe was very kind
to her. He was deeply touched by the elemental force
of emotion in his "little Mignon." He spoke to her
affectionately, and at length, dismissing impatiently the
inquisitive Christiana who had opened the door and
asked him to go out with her. With the sweet mes-
senger from the past, he reviewed the days of his
boyhood, felt his youth reawaken in the cramped at-
mosphere of Weimar, and with a symbolic gesture,
full of significance for the young dreamer who doubt-
= 167
less saw in it a token of mystic betrothal, he placed
a ring upon her finger. 218
Later Goethe appreciated the danger. When the
young enthusiast poured out in a letter to Goethe's
mother the longings of her heart — the mother did her
best to fan the flame — 21 * and when the old lady had
sent him an account of the ardent feeling which he had
aroused in Bettina, Goethe knitted his brows and with-
drew in stubborn silence. To Bettina's first letters there
was no single word of reply.
So Bettina went to seek the answer which she could
not otherwise obtain. She returned to Weimar, at the
beginning of November, 1807, this time accompanied
by a throng of relatives — Clemens, Arnim, her sister
Gunda, and her brother-in-law Savigny. She stayed in
Weimar for ten days, seeing Goethe almost every day,
and Goethe began to enjoy her company. Bettina no-
ticed this and showed herself at her best; with her
naive and spring-like charm she elicited friendly
smiles; she was original and alluring and gave free rein
to the impulses of her spontaneous fancy. During these
familiar talks, these walks on Goethe's arm, their in-
timacy had made such progress that when she wrote to
him again, some weeks later, she used the familiar
"thou," and henceforth continued to do so. 220
Goethe, however, was still on the defensive; another
168 ==
year passed before he, too, wrote "thou." 221 But his
"you" was only a weak defence, and Bettina knew it.
When, on November 10th, they parted, Goethe kissed
her, 222 and soon did more for her than use the intimate
"thou" in his letters. When she wrote him letters,
aflame with love, he sent her back her own words like
jewels in the magnificent setting of two sonnets. It
was as if he entered into Bettina's deepest self, till both
merged into one. We know what artists are, how
mighty a force for deception lies in their impression-
able nature; it is their peculiar failing, and we are not
the dupes of their florid declarations. But how different
must have been the impression upon Bettina. ... In
February, 1808, she told Goethe that never before had
she looked upon a man, 223 and that it hurt her to think
that all her youth was being wasted. . . . "But now
I have you. . . ."
She was intelligent enough not to confine her letters
to love; she dealt with poetry also; she wrote of Eg-
mont, which she appreciated and discussed in striking
fashion, and a little later of "Wahlverwandtschaften"
("Elective affinities").
Her delight in Goethe's art was like the primitive
delight of a child bathing in the sea. She discussed
music with him and showed a virile taste for Cheru-
bini's Medea and for Gluck's 1 phi genie auf Tauris;
= 169
following the wise promptings of heart and mind, she
constituted herself the provider of music for Goethe's
private choir; she sent him curious documents and suc-
ceeded more than any other woman of his circle in
appealing to his intellect. 224
After the death of Goethe's mother, Aja (September
13, 1808) , the poet's letters to Bettina show a far more
affectionate tone. Now that his mother had gone,
Bettina was the only one who knew the essential de-
tails of his younger days which Goethe himself had
forgotten. She was the sole keeper of all those precious
memories which she had gathered from the lips of his
own mother. He wrote to her a year later: 225 "Your
letters give me great pleasure: they remind me of the
time when I was perhaps as foolish as you but certainly
happier and better than today."
His smile could scarcely hide a feeling of regret and
of melancholy. The months which followed showed
that his affection increased. Goethe could resist no
longer. 226 So much so, that when Bettina interrupted
her correspondence for a few weeks, Goethe felt her
silence very keenly, and wrote to her on May 10, 1810:
"Dear Bettina, I have not heard from you for a very
long time; 227 1 cannot leave for Karlsbad without send-
ing you greetings, without calling upon you — by letter
— and without receiving from you a sign of life. Your
170 =
letters accompany me. When I am there, they must
replace your charming presence. ..." (We feel that
Goethe is here restraining his feelings.) "I can say no
more, for in truth there is nothing I can give you; it is
either you who give everything or you who take every-
thing. . . ."
During the following summer months Bettina met
Beethoven, and brimming over with the impression
which he had made upon her, went to see Goethe in
Teplitz and remained with him for three days, from
August 9 to 12, 1810.
What happened during those three days? The un-
usual warmth of Goethe's letter, written to Bettina
immediately after her visit, suggests that she had never
been more favoured by her idol. I have shown this in
my first essay, but there were many gaps in my story.
Bettina's long letter of July 6-28, 1810, stopped sud-
denly in the middle of a sentence in which she spoke
of Beethoven. From July 28th to October 18th there
was a lull in the correspondence which is all the more
difficult to understand, as Goethe in his short letter,
written on August 17th, five days after Bettina's de-
parture from Teplitz, spoke with unusual enthusiasm
of the many pages (Blatter) 228 which Bettina had left
him, and which he "read over and over again"; he
spoke also of one which had just arrived. . . . What
= 171
did he do with them, what did they contain, these let-
ters which Bettina did not find in the collection which
Councillor von Muller sent her after Goethe's death,
in August, 1832? What is perhaps even more ex-
traordinary is that Bettina, the last person to disguise
her feelings — she would much rather have exaggerated
them — did not rewrite them. She never wished to dis-
turb the dust of those recollections.
Here, however, are a few grains from the heap, dis-
covered last year, among the drafts of Bettina's letters
which were sold under the hammer and which have
not been mentioned in any of the books on her:
"The twilight of evening was falling, this hot
August day. . . . He was sitting at the open window,
while I stood before him, my arms round his neck, my
eyes piercing his to their depths, like an arrow. Perhaps
he could withstand my gaze no longer, for, to break
the silence, he asked me whether I felt hot and whether
I would not like to be cooler? ... I nodded assent.
He went on, 'Why not open your breast (Mach doch
den Busen frei) to the evening breeze?' As I did not
object, although I blushed, he undid my bodice, looked
at me, and said: 'The glow of the sunset has reddened
(eingebrannt) your cheeks.' He kissed my breast and
rested his head on it. 'No wonder,' said I, 'for my sun
is sinking to rest upon my bosom.' He gazed at me for
172 ^=
a long time and we were both silent. He then asked,
'Has anyone ever touched your breast?' 'No,' I replied;
'it is so strange that you should touch me thus.' Then
he showered kisses on me, many, many, violent kisses.
. . . I was frightened. . . . He should have let me go;
and yet it was so strangely beautiful. In spite of myself
I smiled, yet feared that this happiness should not last.
His burning lips, his stifled breath — it was like light-
ning. I was in a whirl of confusion; my curly hair hung
in loose strands. . . . Then he said, softly: 'You are
like a storm; your hair falls like rain, your lips dart
lightning, your eyes thunder.' 'And you, like Zeus, knit
your brows and Olympus trembles.' 'When you undress
at night, in the future, and the stars shine as now upon
your breasts, will you remember my kisses?' 'Yes.'
'And will you remember that I should like to cover
your bosom with as many kisses as there are stars in
heaven?' . . . The memory of it tears me asunder
(zerreist mich von alien Sett en), I long to dissolve in
tears like a cloudy sky. — Never repeat what I confide
to you this lonely night. I have never told it to anyone
before. . . !" 229
These ashes which we have just stirred still burn!
What a glow do their embers throw on a letter which
Goethe wrote some days later. What a light is shed on
those written during the winter 1810-11, which still
= 173
exist, apart from the letters from Bettina which were
destroyed and to which Goethe refers.
"Bettina, dearest of all! (allerliebste) Your letters
are such that the latest seems always the most fascinat-
ing! Thus it was with the pages which you brought me,
and which I read hungrily, again and again, on the
morning you left me. But now comes your last letter
which surpasses (ubertrifft) all the others. If you can
go on surpassing yourself (iiberbieten) , do it! With
yourself you have taken away so much, that it is only
fair that you should send me back something. ..."
To this letter he pinned a note asking her to send her
reply not to Teplitz, nor to Weimar, but to Dresden, in
care of a third person, and he added, "Oh dear, what
will your letter tell me? . . ."
We, too, should like to know. What did this letter
contain, and those which followed, for more than one
was written before October. During that month the
correspondence which was saved from destruction be-
gan again with a letter from Goethe, who had returned
to Weimar on October 25th, in which he says that he
should have thanked Bettina long ago "for the dear
letters which reached me in due course (nach und
nach), and particularly for remembering the 27th of
August so kindly. . . ." It is lost to us, like all the rest,
this souvenir of August 27th. All we know is that
174 ^^
Goethe did not reply to the letters after his note of
August 17th. He had set a gulf between this memory
and himself. And now, instead of reverting to the past,
we see the path into which he would direct Bettina's
ardent sensibility; he took advantage of her frame of
mind — he well knew how to handle loving hearts — to
ask her to tell him all the interesting secrets which his
mother, Aja, had confided to her, all those stories of
his youth which he remembered no longer. He was
rather troubled about them; who knows what Juliet's
nurse told Romeo of her nursling? ... It was a great
sacrifice which he asked of Bettina, for these stories
were her personal treasure, to which no one else had
access. How deeply Bettina must have loved him to do
what he asked; we feel what it must have meant to her.
Goethe, however, could not have chosen a more fa-
vourable moment to secure this sacrifice from her. 230
She complied with his wish. But she was not alto-
gether unaware of his motive, as is shown by her reply
of November 4th:
"You have always some good reason for writing to
me. But my heart retains nothing of your letter except
the last words, 'love me until we meet again' {Liebe
mich bis zum Wiedersehen\) If you had not added
these last words, I should perhaps have taken more
careful note of the motive prompting the request
= 175
which preceded them; but this single proof of affection
has defeated me. ... A thousand tender thoughts
have held me captive last night, and all today. And
now I realize that what you demand (verlangst) is so
precious to me that I find it worthy of your accept-
ance."
Thereupon she threw open the sanctuary of her
recollections. Is it not as if, in giving them to him, she
gave herself again? She expresses a great deal in the
following words, which sound so profoundly sincere:
"Ich bin ein duf tender Garten dieser Erinnerungen"
("I am a fragrant garden wherein these reflections
flower").
She threw them to him by the armful, these flowers
of the past, which he planted afresh in his Dichtung
und Wabrheit.
From this moment, however, I find a new tone in
Bettina's letters. There is disturbance, sorrow, a passion
imperious and burdensome; there are spiteful fits in
which she inveighs against Goethe's friends and par-
ticularly against his "house god," Zelter. There are,
indeed, many heavy clouds in her sky.
"Since we were together in Teplitz I find it im-
possible to pay you compliments." 231
"... Once I climbed a mountain top. . . . What
is it that weighs so heavily on my heart? . . ."
176 ^=
Goethe remained impervious to the allusions in these
letters, their cries of passion, their attacks on Zelter; he
was deaf to the passionate dreamer with her strange
soliloquies on music, thoughts like lightning flashes in
the darkness of the night. . . . He took good care not
to upset her. He did not waste his time: he gathered
all these priceless recollections which she had in-
herited from his mother. It was Bettina who gave, gave
without end. . . .
But was he, too, not giving, giving in even a larger
measure than she? He was her love! He was her life!
Was it not she who wrote: "If you only knew how
often a single word of yours delivers me from the
horrors of a crushing dream. Oh, tell me: 'Yes, child,
I am within you'! Then all is well Tell me!
"232
When Goethe needed Bettina no longer he grew
tired of her. No doubt he would. It is no easy matter
to feel that one is so indispensable to another! Did not
Bettina's hungry heart ask that Goethe should be
"within her," should belong to her? 233 Such a man as
Goethe could belong only to those who assumed no
proprietary rights over his freedom. That is why he
preferred his fat, amiable Christiana to Bettina with
the exigencies of her love.
Besides this, there was a deep misunderstanding
s,
= 177
between them. The Goethe whom Bettina loved was
not the Goethe of her time. The one she loved was the
Goethe of -her mother, of the days of the first Wilhelm
Meister. . . . Where are the snows — where is the fire
— of yesteryear?
Eckermann, asked by Moritz Carriere what Goethe's
relations were with Bettina, replied: "She always loved
him, but she was often a nuisance; she asked the old
man to undertake what he had done long ago, as a
young man. She would tell him: 'Art and antiquity,
what's that? {Was Kunst und Altertum?) You must
write a Gotz von Berlichtngen\ that's better!' And he
would reply: T have written it. To each thing its
proper time.' " 234
I shall not refer again to the fatal rupture, which
Goethe had determined upon and which took place
between him and Bettina in 1811, in spite of her efforts
to renew her relations with him. Christiana provided
the occasion, but even without Christiana the break
would have occurred. In vain did Bettina write to
Goethe again in 1817. He did not answer, and her
attempts to enter his house by surprise only irritated
him the more.
Finally, however, he could not but be moved by the
unwavering loyalty of the friend whom he had re-
buffed. It was particularly her scheme for a monument
178 =
to him in Frankfurt 235 which softened his heart and
showed his human weakness. He decided that he
would let her know how much he was touched. . . .
It was a supreme consolation decreed by fate!
Twelve days before his death, on March 10, 1832, a
young messenger from Bettina came to see him, Sieg-
mund von Arnim, her second son, who was then
eighteen. The mother's letter said, "Embrace me anew
in this child" C'Umfasse mich neu In dies em Kinde").
Goethe was kind and fatherly. He invited him to his
table and saw him daily, until he was stricken by the
illness from which he never recovered. Mignon's son
was his last visitor, and the lines which he wrote in
Siegmund's album were Goethe's farewell to the
world. 236 When the young man left him, Goethe was
already ailing, and on his arrival in Frankfurt he heard
of his death. We still have the letter which he wrote
from there to his mother. Bettina was anxious to know
if Goethe remembered her, and what he had said. His
son could only tell her that Goethe had praised her
talent:
"It will seem little to you, very little, but not to me.
If you had seen him, already lost to this world, 237 but
turning the pages of life as in a book, you would have
thanked him from your heart for his friendly en-
quiries about all that concerns you. . . ."
= 179
Bettina learnt of his death from a short paragraph
in a newspaper which she found on the table, late at
night when she came back from a reception. There the
news was already known, but no one dared to tell her.
We can imagine what that night must have been. But
we should be wrong in assuming that this strong-willed
woman, far stronger than we are apt to think, was
plunged in a romantic grief. The blow which struck
her couid not touch the Goethe whom she had created
for herself — the Goethe whom she had enshrined in
her heart.
She could say, rather: "You can no longer escape
me! Now I hold you for ever . . ."
Her letter to Councillor von Miiller, written at the
beginning of April, 1832, is proof of the nobility of
her love, which was in truth stronger than death:
"Goethe's death has indeed made upon me an im-
pression deep and ineffaceable, but in no way sorrow-
ful. If words fail me to express the actual truth of what
I feel I can describe the glorious impression to you by
a picture. He is risen from the dead, he is transfigured,
he beholds from Heaven his friends whose souls, to
their last breath, are fed by him. ... 1 am one of
those who have no life except in him! I do not speak
of him, I speak to him, and his replies are my fullest
consolation. He leaves no question of mine un-
180 ^=
answered, no tender word or prayer without response.
How could I be other than happy in the thought that
at last he has attained that eternal bliss for which his
whole earthly life had been a preparation? And now,
here lies the path of my duty: I must cling so close
to him that nothing may assume a stronger claim than
his. By his side everything that life may bring me
henceforth shall but strengthen my communion with
him. Thus shall all that is worthy of survival in my
earthly existence bear testimony to my love and to his
blessing."
She kept her word. And if the remainder of her life
was not free from weaknesses — and why should it
have been? She was essentially a woman, and that is
why we love her — it remained under the aegis of the
two gods to whom from the cradle her life had been
dedicated, Love and Dreams, "Traum und Liebe." . . .
These words would be a fitting title to her famous
correspondence published in 1835, Goethes Briej-
wechsel mit einem Kmde, in which, revising her
original letters, she pours forth the flood of that inner
consciousness which memory had released. Can we
blame her? History, which since then has inquired into
what she said, has sifted the dream from the reality. 238
But history must, in the end, testify to the loyalty of
her heart. And if a heart so loving has led her some-
= 181
times to embroider dreams on the background of her
story, she has never knowingly altered the design. Her
love and her person were always allied with legend
and whatever she touched became legendary. Yet she
was real. And if, sometimes, her opinion of others de-
ceived her, she has never deceived others, or herself,
about her own nature.
This inner life of Bettina has by no means received
the attention which it deserves. Enquiry has been
focussed almost exclusively on her relations with
Goethe. But no matter how intense this love may have
been, we must not think that Bettina had no existence
outside it. It is true that her whole outlook was
illuminated by the burning flame of remembrance; but
its boundaries extend far beyond Goethe's life and
even beyond his thoughts.
The abundant harvest of Bettina's literary activity
has been studied in part. Without referring to it
further here, there is much to be said of her ideas in
music, 239 of her voluminous correspondence with the
famous men of her day, Alexander von Humboldt,
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Schleiermacher, Em-
manuel Arago, Moritz Carri£re, Peter Cornelius, Em-
182 ^=
manuel Geibel, Friedrich Christoph Foerster, and
others. Lastly there is her political activity.
Fortunate circumstances and the authority which
she had gained secured her direct access to those in
highest authority, the princes 240 and the king of Prus-
sia, and her courage did not fail her. Neither respect
for their exalted position nor fear of displeasing them
restrained her. She spoke openly and forcibly. She had
decided for herself upon the ideal of what a prince
should be — the servant of the community — and this
ideal she meant to impress upon them. "Everything
belongs to the people," she wrote to the Kronprinz of
Wiirtemberg. "Let the prince go lacking, but the peo-
ple must be free from want." The princes were both
flattered and intimidated by the onslaught of this
Deborah, the anointed of Goethe. They dared not pro-
test too much. The year 1848 was coming, and its spirit
was already weakening the sovereign power. This
power was to return, with a vengeance, later on.
Bettina had a splendid colleague in Berlin, Alex-
ander von Humboldt, the last survivor, with her, of
Goethe's great brotherhood. He helped her with all his
energy and defended her books against the censor, 241
for whom both had a feeling of utter contempt and
hatred; 242 he supported her projects and brought her
letters to the notice of the king, who was spared the
= 183
criticism of neither of them. Acting together, they were
a real power, and King Frederick William IV had
reason to fear their opinions. Certain interesting and
unpublished documents which have been communi-
cated to me by a granddaughter of Bettina, Madame
Irene Forbes-Mosse, describe Bettina as a Portia plead-
ing unceasingly the cause of the victims of the social
order. "At a time when there was no Landtag (state
Parliament) in Prussia, nor freedom of the press to
ventilate wrongs, it was Bettina who brought them all
before the king."
Among the bundles of documents relating to such
cases, which passed under the hammer last year, I
notice first the case of the poet and professor, Hoff-
mann von Fallersleben, who was disgraced and dis-
missed from his post on account of his Unpolhische
Lieder. Then that of the great manufacturer, F. W.
Schloffel, the spokesman of the miserable Silesian
weavers, who had been imprisoned on a charge of
communism and high treason. 243 Bettina took up his
cause and collected personally the material for an Ar-
menbuch (Book of the Poor). In 1846 she appears as
the champion of the Polish revolutionary Mieroslaw-
ski, who had been imprisoned and condemned to
death; he was pardoned, thanks to her vehement inter-
vention. 244 In 1849 it was the case of the revolutionary
184 =
Kinkel, who was under death sentence. Bettina spent
days and nights defending him, writing letter after
letter to the king, who replied to her with equal in-
sistence. In my collection are some drafts of unpub-
lished letters by Bettina which are written in her most
passionate style:
"You say that Kinkel has been prompted by evil
motives. This may be, but the stupidity of putting a
man to death because he is a charge on society, and the
folly of a law which authorizes such a crime, fills me
with revolt. . . . What do his faults matter! It is not
this particular man who matters. What matters is that
it should no longer be possible for one drop of a man's
blood to be shed when that man is in the power of
the sovereign."
It must be admitted that the king listened to the
arguments of the Angel of Revolution with a respect
and a patience which are a testimony in favour both of
himself and of Bettina. In 1847 he wrote to her, about
Mieroslawski:
"You love loyalty and truth and demand it in others;
you yourself are an example of both. But loyalty and
truth do not cease to be loyalty and truth even when
the lips of a king express them." 245
Bettina, however, became too outspoken in her fever-
ish attempts, and finally wounded the king's pride. A
E 185
break occurred at the end of 1847. At the same time she
was engaged in a struggle with the Municipality of
Berlin, was accused of lese-majeste and sentenced to
two months' imprisonment.
"You condemn," she wrote to Pauline Steinhauser,
"my political tendencies. I have never undertaken any-
thing, unless my inner self compelled me to it (ich
habe nie etwas unternommen was nicht ein Muss in mir
gewesen ware). Nor have my actions proved without
benefit to humanity. There are many whose heads are
still on their shoulders, who would have lost them if I
had not fought desperately." 246
She gave her support to the risings of 1848, as did
another friend of Beethoven and Goethe, Wilhelmine
Schroeter-Devrient. In her letters Bettina lashed the
treacherous behaviour of the king and praised the peo-
ple. But calumny and hatred accumulated forces against
her. In April, 1848, she wrote to Pauline Steinhauser:
"Believe me if they could have thrown me into the
ditch it would have been done." 247
She never flinched from her task: she remained in-
domitable, facing her foes, even after the ruin of her
hopes for democracy. She was "Freiheitsbegeisterte"
("intoxicated with ideas of freedom") to the end of
her days. 248 Such was her prestige, such was the gla-
mour which she owed to Goethe, her master, that after
186 ^=
1848 the King of Prussia and the princes, in spite of
their bitter feelings, treated her with the highest con-
sideration and interested themselves, 1851-52, in the
realization of her project of a monument to Goethe at
Weimar. But the proud Bettina declined the royal offer
to carry out the work, saying that "Goethe's monument
could only come from the German people {well Goethe
nur in deutschen Volk ein Denkmal erhalten
konne):*"*
It was the attitude of one completely aloof. In spite
of the king's pressing invitations, she never went to
court. 250 Her life became more and more retired; small
and frail in her conventual robe of coarse black cloth,
she meditated in her room, which she never left except
in the evening to hear quartet music in her Pompeian
hall — Joachim was first violin. The idols of her youth,
Beethoven and Goethe, illuminated the evening of her
days. She remained faithful to them, not as the guard-
ian of their graves, but as the ministrant to the im-
mortal flame of their lives. She had two ardent dis-
ciples in her eldest daughters, Armgart and Gisela,
both artists like their mother; they were painters, es-
pecially Gisela, who married Hermann Grimm; they
were musicians, Armgart especially, whom Joachim
admired; Gisela also wrote for the stage. All three
= 187
were eager to succour the downtrodden and to wel-
come the champions of rebellion. Mother and daugh-
ters alike bore on their foreheads the trace of the blood
which Berlichingen and Egmont shed for the freedom
of the people.
APPENDICES
THE "MARSEILLAISE" IN GERMANY
SILHOUETTE OF GOETHE ON HORSEBACK
THE "MARSEILLAISE" IN
GERMANY 251
The Marseillaise became known throughout Germany
almost as soon as in France. It was first sung in Sep-
tember, 1792, five months after the War Hymn for the
Rhine Army was composed at Strasbourg on the night
after the news of the declaration of war (April 25,
1792). This was a few weeks after the revolutionaries
of Marseilles had spread it through Paris (about
August 10th). It was sung, not during the battle of
Valmy, but a few days after, on the order of the
Minister for War, as a Te Deum of solemn thanksgiv-
ing. The heir to the throne of Prussia, who had heard
it in the course of the negotiations which resulted in
the retirement of the German army, expressed a desire
for the music and received one of the copies sent from
Paris to Kellermann 252 (Comp. Revue La Revolution
Francaise November-December, 1918; an article by
191
192 =
Julien Tiersot commenting upon extracts from the un-
published memoirs of General Beaufort). After Jem-
mapes, where the Marseillaise made its first appearance
on the battle-field, Kotzebue apostrophized the author
as follows: "Brute, barbarian, how many of my
brothers have you not slain?" The saying seems to have
been taken up and repeated by Klopstock in another
form. According to a German tradition, Klopstock
visited Rouget de Lisle in Hamburg in 1797, and ex-
pressed his admiration of this war song, the inspiration
of armies. "You are a terrible man; you have cut to
pieces 50,000 honest Germans" (Brockbaus Konver-
sations-Lexikon. 9th and 10th editions, 1853: on the
words Marseillaise and Rouget de Lisle. N. B. — The
editions of the B. K. Lexikon of the first forty years of
the century do not mention the Marseillaise) .
Goethe mentions it on three occasions in his history
of the Siege of Mainz. It is remarkable that only once
in these three passages does he refer to the Marseillaise,
which was performed by the French garrison when
they left Mainz, as being a striking piece of music. On
the other two occasions it was played with tf Ca ira" by
the oboes of the German regiments to enliven Goethe's
guests "while they emptied bottles of champagne." At
the dinner tables in hotels the guests asked for it to be
played, "and all those present seemed pleased and satis-
= 193
fied with it." This shows that the Germans generally
looked upon it as a lively air and took no notice of
the words.
A curious example of this has been pointed out to
me by Professor Max Friedlaender. Ever since 1804,
part of the melody of the Marseillaise had spread
through Germany, becoming acclimatized as a popular
song, which was soon a great favourite. It had become
nothing more or less than a romantic highwayman's
song — Rinaldo Rinaldini, in eleven verses.
T-nr l M i 'f i il i if : T F i
5 # m( w .»wu..4tr'U*nKwi— ,*^«- w-fyfhi** fa> ♦
*> — ' — — " >*■ . ...#»• . c.
But it was none other than Goethe's brother-in-law,
Christian August Vulpius, who had introduced the
words of this song into his romance Rinaldo Rinaldini,
in 1799. In 1804 an unknown composer added the
melody which is still sung by the German people of
our present day (Volkslieder von der Mosel und der
Soar. Halle, 1896, No. 336, published by Kohler &
Meier). It is, however, very questionable whether
194 ^=
Goethe, or Vulpius himself, recognized the Marseil-
laise in this new form. As we have seen earlier in this
book, 253 it was the minor passage in the Marseillaise
which impressed it on Goethe's mind, while in the
popular song of the brave highwayman only the major
tune was used.
The fine character of the Marseillaise was not really
appreciated by German musicians till after 1830.
The Gallic cock under the threefold motto of the
Revolution aroused from sleep the national hymn
which had been put aside or suppressed under the Em-
pire and the Restoration. 254 It is known that Schumann
used the Marseillaise three times: in 1839, in the
Viennese Carnival, in which he concealed it under the
guise of a 3-4 time handler, because the song itself
was banned by Metternich; in 1840 in the famous song,
Heine's Two Grenadiers (the poem was set to music
that same year also by Wagner, in Paris, with the same
use of the Marseillaise); in 1851 in the overture to
Hermann und Dorothea.
How Beethoven would have been struck by this
music, so closely akin to his! The impression would
have been far more powerful than in Schumann's case.
It would have floated like an ensign above some mighty
work of his. Must he not have heard it on his journey
from Bonn to Vienna in November, 1792, when he
= 195
crossed the French lines? Did not the Marseillaise
reach Austria and force an entry into his deaf ears ? The
researches of Professor Max Friedlaender among the
newspapers and musical publications in Austria, dur-
ing the first half of the nineteenth century, have re-
vealed nothing. But in any case Beethoven had had
relations in Vienna with great musicians who, like
Cherubini, had played a large part in the orchestral
and choral art of the French Revolution, and it is stated
that Salieri, whom Beethoven had known since boy-
hood and who was a well-known authority in Vienna,
used the Marseillaise in one of his works called Pal-
mira, in 1795. The question may never be answered.
But I am inclined to think that had he known it, he
would have spoken of it and that one of his composi-
tions would have shown its traces.
APPENDICES
BETTINA'S LETTER ON MUSIC
WEIMAR: TOWER OF THE
CASTLE AND THE DUNGEON
BETTINA'S LETTER ON MUSIC
255
Emotion and subconscious impulses, which in all arts
and sciences are the source of the supernatural, 256 have,
in the case of music, reached the highest point. This is
a matter into which no one, as it seems, would wish to
probe deeply. We always find, in the background, the
mediocrity of the pedants; it is an annihilating force. 257
All of them desire to express themselves by reasoning
in music, [and the quintessence of music is that
it begins at the precise point where reason ends]. 258
These people, in all good faith and simple-minded-
ness, believe that expression by reason is possible, and
unconsciously employ magic formulas. In some cases
only half of these are used; in others the end of the
formula is used, before the beginning; so that, instead
of being full of life and brilliance, as they were once,
the compositions become fixed, frozen, and unutterably
tiresome.
199
200 ^=
Yet, in our hearts a secret stirring is felt; it comes
and goes, it disappears again, without betraying its
origin. Then, in a moment, genius, hidden for so long
in the disorder of chaos, growing and developing, step
by step, breaks forth in all its splendour. . . . [Bee-
thoven]. Such is the condition of music today. In this
art, genius is always alone, always misunderstood, for
it has sought its own path, not, in the full light of day,
but almost unconsciously, almost without knowledge of
itself.
Many men must be born before a genius appears.
And on the other hand, genius must have an active
and persistent influence on mankind. 259 Otherwise it
would not be genius. Without a public there would be
no music.
How keen a delight it is to see, as through a crystal
glass, into past centuries, and watch how intelligence
governs work, guides its accomplishment, and gives im-
pulse to the spirit of man. ... In music that will
never be again. The flame which now burns no more
had its own temple, and that temple is in ruins. Now
it is not in our intelligence, but in our hearts, 260 in our
own individual temperament, that the spirit of music
must be heard. But where is the musician who can keep
himself so innocent, so pure that he will only feel,
and express — what is Good ?
= 201
How strange is the destiny of the language of music,
that it should not be understood! Hence the reason for
the furious outcries against everything that has not
been heard before — not only because it is not under-
stood, but also because it is not even known. Man, 261
in the presence of music, becomes rigid like a block of
wood. 202 What he knows he is prepared to endure, not
because he understands it, but because he is used to it,
as a donkey is used to its daily load. Never yet have I
met anyone who did not turn away from music, weary
and depressed, after he had listened to it for a certain
time. This is a necessary consequence which it is easier
to understand than the contrary. What else can a man
do who has vast ambitions, 263 if he does not first rid
himself of all these mere artisans of music, 264 if he does
not live his own life with which no other man may
interfere? . . . He may well "make" music, but he
will never set the spirit free from the letter and from
the law. Every art claims that it outlives death and
leads man to realms that are not of this earth; but there,
wherever the Philistines mount guard, man stands in
his humiliation with the cropped head of a slave. What
should be freedom of will, freedom of life, becomes a
mere piece of machinery. 205 We may wait, and believe,
and hope — but nothing will happen. We cannot reach
the heights save by paths now deeply buried in the
202 ^^
sand; our salvation must be by prayer, by the concen-
tration of the heart, and by keeping our faith for ever
in our God. Here we face the inaccessible peaks, yet it
is only upon their summit that we may inhale with
rapture the breath of our desire. 5
266
REFERENCES
REFERENCES
1 It seems most appropriate to put Beethoven's letter "To the
Immortal Beloved" into the year 1812 (see my article in Henry
Pruniere's Revue Muskale, October 1, 1927).
2 "To thank you for the long time I have known you (for I
have known you since my childhood's days) is so little for so great
a gift . . ." (Beethoven's letter to Goethe, April 12, 1811.)
3 Conversation with Rochlitz, July, 1822.
4 In the same year appeared the first part of Faust. But Bettina
had forestalled him in this plan. Ever since mid January, 1808, she
was "submerged" {vet sunken) in Faust composition. She wrote
Marguerite's moving "Prayer to the Virgin." Beethoven was looking
for some one to adapt Faust for the theatre {Cottasches Morgen-
blatt, October, 1808). But he can find no one to help him. In
1822, when Rochlitz, who knew nothing of the original project,
sends Beethoven the proposal of the Editor Haertel that he should
write the music for Faust, "Ha!" cries Beethoven, his arms on high.
"That would be a task! That should be something worth doing . . ."
And he meditates upon it. But at his age, he can do no more; he is
engaged on the work of the two great symphonies and of an
oratorio. With regret he declines the proposal.
5 The German phrase is so rich in accumulated energy that in a
translation it must be expanded, so that nothing may be lost.
"Ausladen . . . von . . . nach . . . hin . . ." suggest a torrential
discharge, but a discharge directed upon a mark. It is the expression
both of the will and of the power of nature.
• It is worth noting that Bettina, who quotes these words, is
personally of a very different opinion; she says that music adds
nothing to Goethe's Lieder. Her account, therefore, bears all the
more the stamp of authenticity.
205
206 =
7 Further on in this book will be found a short essay on her
psychological life.
8 This refers to the comparison between the authentic letters,
which have been discovered recently, and the edited letters which
Bettina published in 1835, after the death of Beethoven and Goethe
(Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde). I mention particularly
Dr. Waldemar Oehlke's philological thesis Bettina von Arnim's
Briefromane, 1905, Bettinas Briefwechsel mit Goethe, compared
with the originals and published in 1922 by Reinhold Steig, and
Bettinas Leben und Briefwechsel mit Goethe, published by Fritz
Bergemann, 1927.
9 Let us begin by establishing exactly the age and the moral con-
dition of our three heroes at this epoch of 1810. Goethe was sixty-
one. He had at last married, in October, 1806, Christiana, with
whom he had been living for eighteen years, and whom he had
much trouble even then to get the society of Weimar to receive. His
son August was seventeen. Four years later (in September, 1814) he
was to meet Marianna von Willemer, and a new spring to blossom
in his heart, immortalized in the Westostlicher Divan. At the time
of which we are speaking he seemed to be enveloped in his distrust
of the new spirit of the age and of the younger generation; he was
engrossed in the official order of things and in the tenets of respecta-
bility. We shall see this only too well in the pages which follow.
Beethoven was forty. He was in the prime of life, flaming with
passions. He had just composed the "Appassionata," the "Farewell"
Sonata (Lebewohl), The Harp Quartet, the E. Flat Concerto, and
was writing Egmont. Bettina found him smarting from a recent love
disappointment; he was still madly in love with Theresa Malfatti.
He saw the foolishness of it, flogging himself with the whip of his
bitter irony. Bettina's advent was to him a deliverance. Bettina was
twenty-five and looked much younger. She was born in Frankfurt in
1785, the daughter of the beautiful Maximiliana La Roche, whom
the young Goethe once loved, and of the merchant Brentano, who
was twenty years older than her mother. The mother was a Protestant
= 207
and a native of the Rhine Provinces; the father was a Catholic and
of Italian origin. Her mother died when Bettina was eight, and her
father when she was twelve. Educated first in a convent, and then
among Protestants, she had always a mystical tendency, without,
however, being able to connect it with any religion. Her brilliant
natural gifts of art and poetry were tenderly nursed by one of her
brothers, Clemens; in 1807 she formed a friendship with one of her
brother's friends, the young nobleman and poet Achim von Arnim,
whom she married in 1811. But the great event in her life was her
passion for Goethe, which began in 1806 (of this I shall speak-
later on). She became the bosom friend of Goethe's mother, and
through her she succeeded at last in meeting Goethe in 1807. From
that moment she belonged to him until her death.
10 Napoleon, who met her about the year 1809, asked, "Who is
this fuzzy young person with fiery eyes?" (Draft of an unpublished
letter by Bettina.)
We must not forget, as a background to our word-picture, the god
of war and his conflagrations . . . Jena. . . . The year 1809 is
crimson with the glare of blood-stained skies. In August, 1809,
Bettina wrote to Goethe, "During the whole summer the flames of
war have reddened my horizon."
11 Alois Bihler, a student at the University of Landshut, was intro-
duced into the family circle of Professor de Savigny, and there met
Savigny's sister-in-law, Bettina. They spent part of the summer of
1810 together at Bukowan in Bohemia, on a property belonging to
the Brentanos. Both were great music-lovers. Bihler taught Bettina
harmony. The creative genius of this woman filled him with admira-
tion: "She improvises poems while singing, and she sings while
improvising, with a marvellous voice" ("Singend dichtete sie und
dicbtend sang sie mit prachtvoller Stimme"). "A magnificent con-
tralto voice," wrote her granddaughter, Mme. Irene Forbes-Mosse.
... A month after her meeting with Beethoven, on the 9th of
July, Bettina wrote to Bihler, and this authentic letter is the most
reliable basis on which we can build the story of this meeting. (See
208 ^^
Albert Leitzmann: Beethoven und Bettina. Deutsche Revue, Febru-
ary 1918.)
12 On December 13, 1809, Wilhelm Grimm was lunching at
Goethe's house, and was told by the latter that he had received
Bettina's portrait by Louis Grimm (a beautiful picture which is re-
produced in Fritz Bergemann's book) ; he praised it highly and ex-
pressed great joy. Wilhelm Grimm said that Bettina did not think
the portrait very good. Goethe replied, "Yes, she is a dear child!
Who could do justice to her? If Lucas Kranach were still alive, he
would be equal to the task."
13 In Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde (1835).
14 " ... A magnificent garden, full of flowers; all the glass
houses were wide open ; the scent of the flowers was overwhelming.
. . . Beethoven stood in the burning sunshine, and said ..."
(May 28).
"A bunch of lilies of the valley fills my little room with its elusive
perfume . . ." (May 15th).
And Beethoven's letter, perhaps not authentic (August), ". . . In
our little observatory, during the splendid May rain, when I learned
to know you ..."
15 In her letter to Bihler, she wrote A Fantasy . . . No doubt it
was the Sonata quasi una fantasia, op. 27, no. 2 (The Moonlight
Sonata) .
16 Her letter to Bihler describes both the house and the host: "In
the first room, two or three pianos, without legs, on the floor ; some
chests, a rickety chair. In the second room, his bed: a straw mattress
and a thin blanket; a wash basin on a deal table; his nightshirt is
thrown on the floor." Beethoven kept her waiting; he was just
shaving. (From this we can see that Bettina has embellished her
entrance as described in her book published in 1835, quoted above.)
He is small, dark, his face covered with pock marks, ugly but with
a magnificent forehead — "a noble vault, a masterpiece!" — very long
black hair which he brushed back. Much younger than his age, "one
would take him to be not more than thirty" ; he says he is thirty-five
= 209
and does not remember when he was born. — Within a quarter of an
hour they are intimate friends. — He is sitting on the edge of a chair,
by the piano, on which one of his hands is wandering softly. Then,
suddenly, he forgets everything round him; he is engulfed "in an
ocean (Weltmeer) of harmony . . ." This whole account is of a
life-like precision; we can feel that it was written under the imme-
diate impression, with perfect spontaneity.
17 The word "electricity" recurs often in her conversation with
Beethoven.
18 I have no wish to repeat here this magnificent conversation.
It requires separate study and careful criticism. It abounds in flashes
of genius, bursting through a cloud of mystical dreams, flashes
which were generated in Bettina by that lonely visionary whom she
had interrupted in the midst of his creative work. I shall limit my-
self to the undisputed facts.
19 "Heute war wieder ubles Wetter" ("The weather is bad
again today"). Beethoven, in his grumbling way, made this sarcastic
remark to Schindler, in the letter in which he broke off their rela-
tions in May, 1824.
20 ". . . In all that concerns his art he is so sincere and so mas-
terful (herrschend) that no other artist dares go near him. But in
the other things of life he is so simple that people can do with him
what they like. They laugh at him and his absent-mindedness; they
take advantage of him; he rarely has enough money for his bare
necessities. His friends and his brothers suck him dry (aufzehren) .
. . . His clothes are torn, his appearance is always tattered (zer-
lumpt). And yet he gives the impression of grandeur and majesty
{Seine Erscheinung is bedeutend und herrlich). In his stubbornness
he sees nothing of what is going on around him. While he is com-
posing he is deaf to the world outside, his eyes are troubled, he is
brimming with harmony, insensible to impressions from without;
all ties between him and the rest of the world are broken, he lives
in the profoundest solitude. If you speak to him at some length,
and wait for an answer, he suddenly bursts into inarticulate sounds
210 ^=
(er bricht plotzlich in Tone aus), takes his paper and begins to
write. His first step, when composing, is to sketch a vast plan, and
it is on the basis of this plan that his work is shaped and con-
trolled."
There is no need for me to dwell on the interest of such a de-
scription, which has never before been used by Beethoven's biog-
raphers. Bettina expresses herself here with perfect sincerity, and
without a thought for the public, in the first impulse of her gen-
erous heart:
"Why do I write all this to you, in so much detail? Because I
know that he is being wronged, because people are too mean to
understand him, because I feel that I must describe him as he
really is. . . . He is extremely kind to all who confide in him
on musical matters, even to the weakest beginners. He is never tired
of giving them advice and help, this man who is so jealous of his
freedom. . . ."
21 Bettina published three letters which Beethoven wrote to her:
they are dated August 11, 1810, February 10, 1811, and July of
August, 1812. The original of the second only has been found.
This was fortunate for Bettina because otherwise the critics, who
generally were ill-disposed towards her, would have declared that
Beethoven's friendship for her existed only in her imagination. It
so happens that her second letter is not the least affectionate of the
three. As far as I am concerned I am not casting any doubt on the
authenticity of the first letter which mentions intimate matters (an
unhappy love affair) which Bettina could not have known from
other sources. This letter is, besides, in typical Beethoven style. As
for the third letter, the question is different. I shall speak of it
later.
22 Bettina's letter to Bihler.
23 So bricht er plotzlich in Tone aus ("He suddenly bursts into
sounds"). Bettina's letter to Bihler.
24 In my other essay on Bettina in this book I shall show how at
z = 211
a later stage in her political career she was a heroine of justice and
the champion of all die oppressed.
25 "J a, Dir moge ich alles sagen; es ist so viel und auch so wenig.
. . . Alle Wahrheit ist dem Menschen zu schwer. . . . Was soil
ich Dir sagen? der Du alles weist — und weist wie wenig die Worte
dem innern Sinn gehorcben, dass sie ihn wahrhaft andeuten mogen
. . ." ("Yes, I would tell you everything; it is so much and yet so
little. . . . All truth weighs so heavily on us human beings. . . .
What am I then to tell you, who already know all? You know how
powerless are words to convey the inner meaning").
20 Literally: "The whole world rises and falls around him, as
. . ." This enigmatic and curiously worded sentence becomes clear
through the letter published in 1835, in which she enlarged on
it: "Das ganze menschliche Treiben geht wie ein Uhrwerk an ihm
auf und nieder, er allein erzeugt frei aus sich das Ungeahnte, Uner-
schaffene . . ." ("Just as the mechanism of a clock centres upon
an axis, so does every form of human activity center upon him: he
alone of himself, unchecked, brings to birth what has never before
existed, the unimagined").
"He alone." ... It is as if Bettina, while writing the sentence
in the original letter, felt instinctively that she could not write it to
Goethe without offending him. So she left it unfinished.
27 What did Goethe know of Beethoven in 1810? It seems that
he had heard, for the first time, one of his works, on October 13,
1807. A young singer, Henrietta Hassler, of Erfurt, who wanted to
become a member of his private choir (see my essay "Goethe the
Musician") sang to Goethe "a scene by Beethoven." Probably this
was a scene from Fidelio the first performance of which had taken
place in November, 1805, and the second, in the revised form, in
April, 1806.
28 I have come to the conclusion that Beethoven's thoughts ex-
pressed by Bettina are not only far above Bettina's intelligence, but
also far in advance of the spirit of the time, and that they represent
the profoundest intuition of his creative genius. They certainly
212 =
emanate from Beethoven, but the impression which they made was
far less clear in the young Bettina of 1810 than they became later,
after long reflection, in the Bettina of 1835. An authentic letter
from Bettina to Goethe (Christmas, 1810), full of her obscure and
passionate thoughts on music, shows how her little head (Kopf-
cheri) is constantly working since she left Beethoven. At the time
the impression which she had received was far greater than her
perception; only very gradually did she understand the fulness of
the treasure over which she had brooded so long.
29 January 11, 1811.
30 Conversation with Councillor von Muller, January 26, 1825
(on the subject of Bettina).
31 In the Briefwechsel of 1835 Bettina imagines that Goethe
writes an amiable answer to her first letter on Beethoven, and
praises her in a fatherly way for what she told him of this great
man; he carefully avoids expressing any judgment on Beethoven,
but he mentions very politely the hope that he will meet him some
day. All this is very probably an exact reflection of what Goethe
said, but never wrote, to Bettina.
32 A hitherto unpublished document (a draft of a letter by Bet-
tina), which I quote in the last essay in this book, page 171,
proves that during these days at Teplitz this impression was not only
platonic.
33 His autobiography.
34 Zelter had met Beethoven in Berlin in 1796; Beethoven, then
twenty-six, had given several concerts there, especially at the Sing-
akademie, when Zelter had been greatly impressed by his im-
provisations.
35 And at what a fatal moment! In September, 1812, just after
the regrettable interview at Teplitz of which we shall speak later.
30 ,f N ur die Toten sollen sie mir ruhen lassen unci Beethoven
. . ." (Authentic letters from Bettina to Goethe, October 16th and
November -1th, 1810.)
^213
37 In the remarkable letter of Christmas, 1810, which deserves a
special note. I insert it as an appendix.
38 This is not a literal translation, but it conveys the meaning:
"Ein recht beschrankter Eigensinn" (An exceedingly stupid stub-
bornness).
39 "Wenn ich einen verlorenen Sohn hatte, so wollte ich lieber,
er hatte sich von den Bordellen bis zum Schweinkoben verirrt, als
doss er in den Narrenwust dieser letzten Tage sich verfiige; denn ich
furchte sehr, aus dieser Holle ist keine Erlosung" (letter to Rein-
hardt, quoted by Bergemann).
40 He had told Bettina in his authentic letter of February 10,
1811, of his intention to do so, asking her to recommend him to
Goethe. Bettina did so, and very warmly, though rather late, on the
1 lth of May, when Beethoven had already carried out his intention.
But the dear girl was always lost in her dreams; days and weeks
slipped by without her being aware of it. Let us remember, too,
that just then she married (March 11th), and though this event
was perhaps less important to her than her daydreams, it must
surely have afforded her a certain distraction!
41 The printing of the score was, however, delayed. Goethe re-
ceived it only in January, 1812. ,
42 Das will alles umfassen und verliert sich daruber immer in's
Elementarische, dock noch mit unendlichen Schonheiten im ein-
zelnen.
43 "Auf der Kippe stehen," a vernacular expression implying the
disdain of the wise man for the child who continues at play, un-
aware of the coming fall.
44 This authentic letter of the 11th of May, 1811, is a most valu-
able example of Bettina's way of editing texts. She gives Goethe
Beethoven's message. She does not attempt to transcribe it word for
word. She expresses exactly the meaning of the words, but at the
same time she tries to give them the form which would produce the
effect desired by Beethoven; we might say that she transposes Bee-
thoven's words into the key of Goethe, and does all she can to win
214 ==
Goethe over to the cause of Beethoven. Once more, then, she shows
herself to be a true and devoted friend ; knowing Goethe's weakness
for adulation, she makes Beethoven say that he had composed his
music to Egmont, for no other reason than that he loved him
(Goethe), loved him with all his heart {die ich aus Liebe, aus
meiner Liebe zu ihm gemacht habe). And she adds: "I will not
speak evil of any man who calls himself your friend, though some
do so from interested motives. But Beethoven is not one of these;
his motives are quite unselfish. On him you have bestowed a great
blessing ; he has interpreted you with all the might of a free nature,
he is a living witness of your overwhelming power."
She knew what she was saying, for she had heard the Egmont
overture and raved over it: "Seine Ouverture aus Egmont ist so
herrlich doss ich sie das beste mogte nennen" ("His overture to
Egmont is so magnificent that I think it is the best music I ever
heard"). I have no doubt that her letter was the determining cause
of Goethe's cordial reply to Beethoven.
45 Let us add that at Karlsbad he met Prince Lichnowsky and
Prince Kinsky, Beethoven's protectors, and only such sponsors could
persuade him to hold out his hand to the "peasant from the
Danube."
46 This can be seen from the awkward way in which he writes to
Beethoven: His music has been mentioned to him by several peo-
ple, with much praise. . . . He has never heard his music per-
formed by artists and by distinguished amateurs without wishing
that he could admire Beethoven himself at the piano, and enjoy
his extraordinary talent. It almost seems that he looks upon Bee-
thoven merely as a virtuoso of the piano. Yet the music to Egmont
had been performed in Germany for over a year (the first perform-
ance was in Vienna on the 24th of May, 1810). Goethe knows
nothing of it.
47 On January 23rd, 1812, he makes the following entry in his
diary: "Abends, van Beethovens Aiusik zu Egmont" ("In the
evening Beethoven's music to Egmont"). And on the 20th of Feb-
z ?1*
ruary: "In the morning Herr von Boyneburg played Beethoven's
composition to Egmont. He dined with us. After dinner, continua-
tion of the music."
48 This was Christiana's spelling, as she pronounced the name.
4U Christiana, in her intimate effusions to her husband, used to
address him as "My dear good Privy Councillor."
00 Bettiuas Leben und Briejwechsel mit Goethe, by Fritz Berge-
mann. 1927.
51 "Zum Sehen geboren, "I was born to see,
Zum Schauen bestellt Destined to contemplate
Gefallt mir die Welt. And I like this world.
Ihr gliicklichen Augen, Oh, ye happy eyes,
Was je ihr geseh'n, Whatever you have seen,
Es sei wie es wolle, Be it what it may
Es war doch so schon." It was so beautiful!"
(Written in May, 1831, when Goethe was in his eighty-second
year. )
52 This was not Christiana's fault. She was always her own simple,
loyal, and outspoken self. Her recently published correspondence
shows that she was lovable in spite of her vulgarity. Had she done
nothing but inspire Goethe to write Das Bliimchen, the modest and
tender poem of 1813, which he gave her at their silver wedding,
she would still be dear to Goethe's real friends. While she lived
Goethe could rely on a steadfast affection. After she had gone he
felt very lonely, very lost, in his domestic life. Behind the imposing
facade of these last years was hidden great sadness and utter distress.
His majestic mental balance was only resumed when he turned to
his work, when he made his daily appearance before the world, when
he was "on show." But how feeble he was in his private life, a weak-
216 ^=
ness of which his lucid mind was fully aware. Beethoven, like him
supreme in his art, was no more master of his life than Goethe:
his weakness seemed even more pronounced. He was less able to
disguise it, and his character was more unbalanced. Beethoven was
made of a tougher stuff, but the great man of Weimar was, after all,
not the weaker of the two.
53 Bettina's first letter, in which she revived the correspondence,
was written on the 28th of July, 1817, after Christiana's death.
54 She was the great-granddaughter of the Leonora d'Este whom
Tasso immortalized.
55 The Emperor Francis, the Empress of Austria, the Empress
Marie-Louise of France, the King of Saxony, and a bevy of dukes
and grand dukes — all the illustrious people of Germany and Austria.
56 July 14, 1812. During these days Beethoven was exceptionally
excited. It is quite possible that he had written the famous letter
To the Immortal Beloved during the preceding week. Many facts
taken together go to prove that the passionate encounter took place
on the road between Prague and Teplitz.
57 July 17, 1812: letter to little Emily M. of H., who had writ-
ten him a complimentary letter.
58 Goethe had arrived on the 14th.
59 Others read the word Zusammengeraffter (literally, "pulled
together"), which is even more emphatic.
60 It is exceedingly difficult to translate this, because the words
are extraordinarily comprehensive. Zusammengefasster, and still
more Zusammengeraffter, convey the enormous tension of power to
concentrate, while inniger describes "interior" depths of feeling.
Goethe adds, "I understand why he needs must adopt an extraor-
dinary attitude towards the world" ("Ich begreife recht gut, wie er
gegen die Welt wunderlich stehen muss"). This, too, is an impor-
tant admission by Goethe. (Letter to Christiana July 19, 1812.)
81 One of them, from Bettina to Prince Piickler-Muskau, of
1832; the other from Beethoven to Bettina. They were published
by her after both Beethoven and Goethe were dead. They seem to
= 217
be two similar versions of one and the same letter, and this has led
to a controversy, as to which of the two gave rise to the other.
However, to us one is as valuable as the other. It has been objected
that at the end of Bettina's letter she mentions that immediately
after the incidents which I shall describe later, Beethoven came "to
tell us all about it" and that this would have made unnecessary
Beethoven's description of what happened, contained in his letter
to Bettina, which was sent the next day. But "us" may mean, in
Bettina's absence, her husband, Arnim, and her sister, Mme. de
Savigny. And Beethoven, who was anxious to tell the story per-
sonally to Bettina, may have written to her on the next day. It is
true that Beethoven's letter was addressed from Teplitz in August,
1812, whereas in August he was no longer in Teplitz, but in Karls-
bad or Franzensbrunn, and that the quarrel at Teplitz occurred in
July. But twenty years later, when Bettina found Beethoven's un-
dated letter, she may have added one from memory, as she was
accustomed to do. The presence of Archduke Rudolph during those
days, which is mentioned in the letter ("der Herzog Rudolf hat
mir den Hut abgezogen") — "the Archduke Rudolf lifted his hat to
me," has also been questioned. But here again it is possible that
Bettina wished to complete Beethoven's letter, and in good faith
filled in the name which he had left out. In any case, it is proved
beyond all doubt — it has never, in fact, been contested — that she
was in Teplitz at that time, and that Beethoven confided his trou-
ble to her. Her testimony is of the greatest importance. I may add
that of the two documents, Bettina's letter is more complete and
tells us far more, although Beethoven's letter contains one of the
finest sayings that he ever uttered. It would have required a second
Beethoven to invent it.
62 Goethe's diary.
* 3 As soon as the news of the Arnims' arrival in Teplitz had reached
her in Karlsbad, she wrote to her husband, insisting that he should
not receive them. Goethe, in his reply of August 5th, with that do-
mestic cowardice common to those who want peace at home at any
218 ^^
price, calmed his jealous wife by referring to the Arnims in most
disrespectful terms.
64 It is significant that Bettina's arrival and Beethoven's visit to
her coincide with the latter' s last meeting with Goethe. After July
23 rd they never met again.
65 Note the contemptuous meaning which Beethoven gives the
word "romantic."
66 Beethoven's letter to Bettina is couched in even stronger terms:
"I told Goethe what a great effect discriminating approval has upon
us, and how one longs to be heard with understanding by one's
equal {doss man von seines Gleichen mit dem Verstand angehort
werden will). Emotion is fit for womenfolk (forgive the words).
But man — why, music must strike sparks from his mind (Dem
Mann muss Music Feuer aus dem Geiste schlagen)."
We find the same contempt for sentimentality in his first conver-
sation with Bettina in May, 1810. He thanked her for praising his
music in terms which were without emotion, real or feigned. He is
glad to hear her merry applause (heiteren Beifall). "Most people,"
says he, "are moved by something beautiful, but they are not artisti-
cally minded; artists burst into flames, not tears."
67 Goethe shared this opinion. When in 1800 young Count Wolf
Baudissin told him that for the sake of Bach he would be willing
"to live, languish, and suffer," Goethe replied coldly, "In Art
there is no such thing as suffering (Von Leiden k'onne ja bei der
Kunst keine Rede sein)." This shows that in past days, he, in his
turn, could have taught Beethoven a lesson. But his physical emotion
often gave the lie to his reasoning. Tears would often rise to his
eyes when he read aloud: then he would throw the book down
angrily. He was annoyed at being so moved by the beauty of the
passage. When Zelter, for the first time, played his Lieder in the
presence of Goethe and Schiller, he was astounded to see the violent
expression of their feeling. They "acted the Songs," marched up and
down, gesticulating.
88 I am following here the text of Bettina's letter to Puckler-
= 219
Muskau, which is not so well known as Beethoven's letter to Bet-
tina. The lattet is quoted, in part, in my short Life of Beethoven.
69 This can be completed by Beethoven's letter to Bettina (it does
not matter whether it was written by Beethoven himself or by Bet-
tina from her notes of what he had told her) .
"One must be what one would appear to be!" Beethoven is said
to have told Goethe {"Man muss sein was man scheinen will").
And he goes on: "I gave him a good talking-to, and showed him
no mercy. I reproached him with all his sins, especially towards
you, my dear Bettina."
This is a proof that Bettina had told Beethoven how vexed and
grieved she was, and that this contributed to Beethoven's severity
towards Goethe. Perhaps there is also a trace of jealousy in the fol-
lowing passage: "God! if only I could have had as good a time with
you as that one (wie der) enjoyed. Believe me, I would have done
greater, far greater things!"
The letter contains other interesting details which have since
turned out to be correct and which are usually omitted. Goethe is
shown coaching the empress in a theatrical part, and Beethoven
refusing, in his grumbling fashion, to help with his music. We also
see Goethe and his grand duke, enthusiastic (verliebt) over Chinese
porcelain, and Beethoven, quaintly attributing this craze, which
seemed to him absurd, to the unbalanced spirit of the time "in
which reason has no longer the 'upper hand.' " Beethoven always
quotes reason when he attacks Goethe. "But," he concluded, "I take
no share in all these follies of theirs."
70 With what keen intelligence did Goethe, who was not musical,
appreciate the fact that Beethoven's musical powers were not af-
fected by his deafness. He saw that the man only, not the artist,
was stricken.
71 The sight, not the thought of death. It goes without saying
that a man of Goethe's intellectual and moral calibre never feared
the thought of death. He often speaks of it, and we find many ref-
erences to it in his Conversations. It will suffice to mention the
220 =
splendid reverie prompted by the death of Wieland on January 25,
1813, and which Falk described at length. Generally speaking,
Goethe set against the idea of entire dissolution his firm belief in
the indestructibility of the spirit (among twenty other examples,
see the conversation with Eckermann on May 2, 1824). "At the
age of seventy-five, one is bound to think of death. This thought
leaves me unperturbed because I am firmly convinced that our spirit
is indestructible and progresses from eternity to eternity. . . ."
In considering death, it was not so much the idea of final anni-
hilation which troubled him, as the strange conception that the
surviving spiritual entity might be attacked by another grosser and
more powerful spiritual being which would subjugate it. (See the
conversation with Falk, in which Goethe, overwrought by his recent
bereavement, abandoned his usual reserve on such subjects and
spoke aloud to himself, as if hallucinated.)
What I am concerned with here is the repellent effect which the
sight of death and of the dead always had on Goethe. This was a
constant obsession of his, and there are many proofs of it. He
himself spoke of it to Wilhelm von Humboldt: "Daher sehe ich
kerne To ten" ("That is why I will not look on any dead man"),
December 3, 1808. He gives all kinds of poetical reasons for this.
He compares life to light. When life has departed, when the sun
has set, there remains only "das Grau des Stoffes (the greyness of
substance) ." His reason for refusing to see in death those whom he
knew in life is that if he were to look upon their bodies he would
feel that they were for ever "verblichen und verschwunden (faded
and vanished)."
This explanation is no doubt correct, but it is partial: it does not
give us all that was in his subconscious mind. But whatever the
reason may be, the fact remains that Goethe avoided the spectacle
of death. In Goethe, by Emil Ludwig, there is an account of the
death of one of Goethe's friends, the Minister of State von
Voigt, and the tender, poignant letter of the dying man; twenty-
four hours later he was dead, just a few steps from Goethe's house.
= 221
Goethe, who lacked the courage to visit him, had calmly replied to
his letter. . . . Another who well knew his aversion to death was
Frau von Stein. On her deathbed she gave instructions that her
funeral was not to pass before her good friend's house. During the
funeral Goethe stayed at home, reading Victor Hugo and Hunting in
Mongolia. . . . But when an intimate friend came to describe the
ceremony, he burst into tears.
Let us not, therefore, be hard in our judgment. Do not let us
accuse him of lack of feeling. Who has ever explored the depth of
his sorrows? Let us rather read once more the immortal plaint, in
Wilhelm Meister, of the Harpist.
72 At the age of eighty, he said, "Wollte ich mich ungehindert
gehen lassen, so lage es wohl in mir, mich selbst und meine Um-
gebung zu Grunde zu richten (If I were to let myself go, without re-
straint, I should bring to utter ruin not only myself, but all those
near and dear to me)."
73 "Was euch nicht angehort, miisset ihr meiden, was euch das
Innere stort, durft ihr nicht leiden" (You must shun what does not
concern you: you cannot endure that which disturbs your inner
self)."
74 Let us add that Goethe at that time was flirting assiduously
with the first lady-in-waiting, Countess O'Donnell, and was very
busy writing her love letters and poems.
73 Letter to Breitkopf, August 9, 1812.
76 Und jreute sich ganz kindisch dass er Goethen so geneckt habe.
77 They were not alone in this. At that time Goethe was showing
an exaggerated respect for those in high position, and their victo-
ries. He had just praised the Empress of France and the continental
blockade. German patriots rose in revolt against this, and popular
irony avenged itself by calling Goethe's wife "Frau Abstinental-
ratin."
7H When he returned to his home in Weimar he found Zelter's
rude letter which was so insulting to Beethoven, and which I have
222 ^=
mentioned already (see page 24) . Considering Goethe's disposition,
it must have had a deadly effect on him.
79 It was this likeness which fetched out the old bear from the
solitude of his woods. "The wild man" (der wilde Mann) who
refused all invitations came and played for Rahel one afternoon, but
it was the deaf playing to the deaf; music meant very little to her.
80 This remark was made by Kalischer {Beethoven und Berlin) .
I have, however, found it to be correct by comparing it with
Rahel' s writings, and was all the more surprised at it because she
frequently mentions music and musicians, with the single exception
of Beethoven. On the other hand her husband, Varnhagen, to whom
she is the Law and the Prophets, expressed, up to 1812, a boundless
admiration for Beethoven (letter to Uhland, 1811). From 1812 on
he too is obediently silent. He stands aside and mentions him only
in passing.
81 But he is still unaware that Beethoven had written other music
also to this work.
82 On January 29, 1814, Egmont was at last performed with
music for the first time in Weimar. Goethe enters in his diary, "In
the evening, Egmont. . . ."
He did not mention Beethoven's name.
Again, while he spoke at length in his letters of the pleasure
which he derived from Himmel's insignificant music to his Lieder,
or from the compositions of titled nonentities like Count von Diet-
richstein, Beethoven never received a single word of appreciation
or blame, which he so ardently desired. It is also significant that
while his correspondent, F. von Gentz, who sent him Dietrichstein's
Lieder, added much praise of Beethoven's three beautiful Lieder to
poems by Goethe, which were published at that time, Goethe in
his reply praised the titled musician's work profusely and cere-
moniously, but never so much as mentioned Beethoven's.
83 Where was the discovery made ? He found his road to Damas-
cus — oh, bitter irony! — in the weakest of Beethoven's compositions,
the only wretched rhapsody among all that he wrote, the Schlacht-
= 223
symphonie, 1816 ("The Battle of Vittoria"). On hearing it, Zelter
became greatly excited, threw his perruque in the air, and shouted:
"Vivat Genius! And may the devil take all the critics! (und hoi' der
Teufel alle Kritikl)" Nor was this all. The same ironical fate
decreed that at the close of his life Zelter should go into raptures
over the same "scandalous" Christ on the Mount of Olives, which
he had described as being "pervertedly lustful." In 1831 this
"shameless" work of old had become "soothing and charming, like
the pleasant dream of a summer night."
84 Marianna, who for two years had been a dancer, singer, and
comedienne, at the theatre in Frankfurt, before marrying in 1814 the
rich banker Willemer, twenty- four years older than herself; she
was both poetess and musician; she was a good exponent of Mo-
zart's Lie der, and had a profound understanding of the fine influ-
ence of music, and of the relief it brings in sorrow — "was du erlebst
in dir erneut und mild dir's nur gewtihrt, so dass was schwarzte, sich
verklart, was jreute inniger erjreut." . . . "Music . . . gives new
and milder forms to one's feelings, makes bright what was dark,
and increases the joy of what is pleasant."
85 June 26, 1821.
86 July 12, 1821.
87 His intuition of the music of the future is remarkable. One is
not surprised to find that Lobe became one of the foremost German
theoreticians of the next period.
88 "That is the evil spirit which threatens you young fellows! You
are ever ready to create new ideals, but how do you carry them into
effect? Your principle, that each part in music must express some-
thing, sounds very well. Yes, it seems as if it should have been recog-
nized and practised long before by every composer, because it is
sound reason. But whether the musical work of art lends itself to
the use of this principle, and whether the enjoyment of music does
not suffer through it, is a different question. You would do well not
to be satisfied merely with thinking this out, but to experiment with
it. In every form of art there are certain weaknesses connected with
224
the fundamental idea, which must be allowed for in practice, be-
cause if we disregard them we come too close to nature, and our
art becomes inartistic (unkunstlerisch) ."
This lesson of a master artisan is worthy of consideration. The
inventors of theories on art, the "ists" of all times, would do well
to take it to heart. Certainly no theory has any value unless proved
in practice. But Goethe's practical tests were far too hasty, and as
far as the present instance is concerned, were certainly biassed.
89 On principle, Goethe was resolutely opposed to "speech with
music" — to "melodrama" — and he said so on many occasions. See
his conversation with W. von Humboldt, on December 3, 1808:
"Gegen das Sprechen zur Musik erklarte sich Goethe so: Musik
set die reine Unvernunft und die Sprache habe es nur mit der
Vernunft zu thun (Music has nothing whatever to do with reason,
while speech has to do with nothing but reason)." He referred to
Schiller's bad habit of demanding music to accompany his speeches,
as in the Maid of Orleans, but added that he. Goethe, had always
been against it. Humboldt heard him on many occasions speak
strongly on the same matter. (We shall return to this subject,
which is well worth discussing; Goethe did not mean to deprive
himself of music, but wanted to incorporate it in poetry which, as
he said, was to him a superior kind of music. See Essay III in
this book, "Goethe the Musician.") Goethe's admission in public,
that the composer had "admirably understood his meaning" in
Egmonfs monologue was in any case no small victory for
Beethoven.
90 It is he who gave the Sonata, op. 27, no. 2, the name "Moon-
light Sonata."
91 "The Councillor of State of Weimar, Schmidt, an ardent ad-
mirer of Beethoven, played all his sonatas with much fire and
facility (sic). He knew many of them by heart" (Rellstab).
92 According to Max Friedlaender it was the manuscript of
Wonne der Wehmut.
= 225
93 Frimmel, Beethovenstudien, II.
94 Goethe had made a note, on May 21, 1822, that he had re-
ceived them, and though he was so particular in matters of courtesy,
he had no word of thanks for Beethoven.
95 Theodore de Wyzewa, Beethoven and Wagner. The article
on Beethoven and Goethe is puerile and full of mistakes.
90 "The poor fellow is almost completely deaf. I could hardly
restrain my tears."
When in 1825 Zelter wrote to Beethoven, through Rellstab, who
conveyed the letter, "it was written," said Rellstab, "in terms such
as might be addressed to a saint in heaven." Beethoven was much
moved by this, and deeply thankful.
97 We cannot find any reference either in Rahel's profuse cor-
respondence, which included all the intellectual and artistic horizon
of Europe. We ought to make a list of those great German per-
sonalities of the time, for whom Beethoven's death had no sig-
nificance. And yet Beethoven's death created a considerable stir.
The popular apotheosis on the occasion of Beethoven's funeral in
Vienna reechoed triumphantly throughout the world.
98 July 24, 1809.
90 According to a note in his letter to Humboldt, Goethe's
"Helena, klassisch-romantische Phantasmagorie, ein Intermezzo zu
Faust . . /' was published during this year. This arbitrary inter-
polation of an episode in Faust almost "deforms" the great work.
ioo Goethe was evidently thinking of the orchestra performing the
piece which Mendelssohn had played to him. But his astonishment
gives his thoughts an extraordinary form. It is as if humanity as a
whole was drawn into the whirlwind of the C Minor Symphony.
101 1 have come to this conclusion by several different paths in
the course of writing this essay.
102 In the Conversation Notebook we see that after the visitor
had left, Beethoven complained to Schindler of what he had said.
103 Beethoven's memory is here at fault ; he should have said
226 ^=
"Teplitz." This is a further reason why Bettina must be excused
when she gave the letter received from Beethoven in Teplitz the
date of August instead of July, 1812.
104 December, 1826.
105 It was to Hummel that he addressed the two well-known notes,
written one after the other in 1798:
"Don't come to me again!" (Beethoven here used the third
person, which at that time was used in Germany when speaking
to a subordinate.) "You are a treacherous hound: the dog-catcher
should be after you."
"Dear friend of my heart! (Herzens Nazerl!) You are a loyal fel-
low, and you were right ; I can see it now. So please come to me this
afternoon. You will meet also Schuppanzigh and between the two
of us we are going to give you a good roughing, pommelling and
shaking (riiffeln, kniijfeln und schutteln), to your heart's content.
"I hug you. Your Beethoven, alias 'Flour Basin' (Mehl-
schoberl)*."
106 In 1829, speaking to Eckermann, Goethe went so far as to
compare Hummel to Napoleon. "Napoleon controls the world as
does Hummel his piano.' The two seem to us admirable in their
mastery; how each contrives to do it we cannot tell, and yet it is
so, and it has happened under our very eyes." April 7th.
107 "I could hardly restrain my tears" (letter to Goethe, Septem-
ber 14, 1819). In this letter Zelter refers to the extraordinary
respect in which Beethoven was held in Vienna, in spite of all the
criticism of his strange character. This testimony of high public
esteem over Zelter's signature could not fail to impress Goethe, the
Privy Councillor.
108 w/ nat are we t0 think of Rochlitz's silence, when he wrote to
Goethe, describing his voyage, without even mentioning Beethoven ?
Many of Goethe's visitors had been directly or indirectly in touch
with Beethoven — Louis Spohr, Emmanuel Alois Forster, etc.
* Translator's Note. — Mehlschoberl in Viennese dialect means "Flour
Basin" and is a nickname often given to stout persons.
= 227
100 ". . . Mir ist das All. icb bin mir selbst verloren,
Der ich noch erst den Gottern Liebling war.
Sle trennen mich, unci richten mich zu Grunde."
("The world is lost to me, and lost my inner self,
And yet I was once the darling of the gods.
They sever me, and ruin me")
— Elegie von Marienbad. Summer, 1823.
110 When, later in life, he remembered this, he wept once more.
in "N un a y er dock das eigentlich Wunderbarste! Die ungeheure
Geualt der Musik auf mich in diesen Tagen! Die Stimme der Milder,
das klangreiche der Szymanowska, ja sogar die ojfentlichen Exhibi-
tionen der hiesigen Jagerkorps, falten mich auseinander wie man
einen ge bailie Faust freundlich flach las si" ("And now the most
wonderful thing of all! The enormous power which music has
had over me lately! Milder's voice, Szymanowska's playing, even
the public performances of the local infantry band — they all make
me relax just as a man's fist, closed in anger, opens under a friendly
impulse.")
112 Maria Szymanowska, nee Wotowska, was born in 1790. She
died, still a young woman, in 1832, the same year as Goethe, at
St. Petersburg.
Was her musical talent outstanding? I have been fortunate in
acquiring a private edition of her compositions, not mentioned by
Eitner and Fetis. Twenty Exercises and Preludes for Pianoforte,
composed and dedicated to Countess Chodkiewick by Mme.
Szymanowska, nee Wotowska, First Edition, 47 engraved pages.
These compositions are written in a fluent but somewhat nebulous
style, which was no doubt the result of the influence of Field, whose
pupil she had been, although both were almost the same age. Her
style was, in a way, a forerunner of Mendelssohn, with here and
there a touch of Schumann. The part for the right hand is light
228 ^^
and graceful, that for the left hand is rudimentary only. It is char-
acteristic that out of twenty pieces there is not a single one which
is passionate or pathetic, allegro molto or adagio. Nearly all of
them are a milder kind — moderato, scherzando, grazioso, con
spirito, commodo. The only one which attempts to express
"thought" or which, to use a simpler expression, approaches emo-
tion, is the last, cantabile, where to our surprise we find a passage
reminding us of an orchestral arrangement from Fidelio (O Go it!
Welch ein Augenblick!) . Ariel's fingers do not trouble the old heart,
too exposed to emotion and too fearful of it: they lull it to rest.
113 Some one had proposed the toast, "Our memories." Goethe
knocked on the table and said (the following is a short summary
of his words) : "I do not like these words. The toast seems to
imply that we have forgotten and that some outer event recalls
our memories to us. Those things which are great and beautiful
never leave us; they become part of ourselves; they bring forth in
us a new and better 'ego': thus they go on living and creating
within ourselves. It is not the past but the eternally new which
our desires would have us seek; the new is itself the creation of
ever-growing elements of the past. True longing (die echte Sehn-
sucht) must always be productive (produktiv) and fashion a new
and better self. . . . And," he adds, "this is precisely what we
have felt during these last days. Our deepest, inmost self has been
refreshed, refined, ennobled, by this glorious artist. No, she can
never leave us, for she has passed into our most intimate selves and
will for ever live within us. ..."
114 Hiller gave an account of this later in his book, Aus dem
Tonleben unserer Zeit, neue Folge 1868-71 (Contemporary Musi-
cal Notes. New Series) .
115 Hummel was so full of Beethoven's greatness that when in
1830 he organized a series of concerts at popular prices at the
Hoftheater in Weimar, he inaugurated them with the overture to
Leonora and the Battle of Vittoria.
110 The following is a definite indirect proof: J. J. Ampere and
= 229
Albert Stapfer called on Goethe about this time (the end of March
or the beginning of April). They would also have liked to see
Weimar's second celebrity, Hummel (these were their own words).
But Hummel was still away.
"The latter, for whom we also had a letter of introduction, had
left for Vienna, to delight the ears of the Austrian public, and we
hope very much that we shall meet him there. We have been . . .
very disappointed at missing him. ..."
Not a word of Beethoven. Nobody in Weimar told them. Goethe,
who knew it, did not tell them that Beethoven was dying and that
Hummel had gone to close his eyes. This concealment seems hor-
rible to me.
117 Since January 29, 1814.
118 1 have in my collection a call-sheet of the Hoftheater in
Weimar, signed "Goethe," dated September 19, 1816, in which
we read:
Monday, September 23rd: Nathan.
Tuesday, September 24th: Rehearsal of Griselda.
Afternoon, general rehearsal of Fidelio.
Wednesday, September 25th: Performance of the Opera
Fidelio.
This was two years after the performances in Vienna.
119 Why should he have deprived himself of one of his mental
powers ? He needed them all.
"Are we to give first place to the historian or to the poet? This
question should never be asked. They are not rivals, any more than
the runner and the wrestler. Each deserves his laurel crown"
(Gedanken in Prosa, part IV, 1825).
120 He was fond of quoting the French saying: "Voir venir les
choses est le meilleur moyen de les 'expliquer.' "
121 Rochlitz intended to organize in Weimar a much more im-
portant series of lectures, with musical illustrations, dealing with
the five principal periods of musical history in Germany and Italy,
230 =
during the preceding three centuries. The cholera epidemic of 1831
prevented this plan from being carried out.
122 Even when we revert to the great works of the past (and each
period selects different works from that great library: yesterday,
Beethoven and Wagner; to-day, Bach and Mozart) it is never the
past which comes to life in us; it is we ourselves who cast our
shadows on the past, with our desires, our problems, our sense of
order or our confused thinking. The Bach of our day has nothing
in common with the Bach of Goethe's day, not to speak of Bach
himself. We can never hope to penetrate the inner self of
others.
123 Th e standard work on this subject is that mine of information,
Die Tonkunst in Goethes Leben, 2 vols., by Wilhelm Bode. Berlin,
1912, {Music in Goethe's life), completed by the same author's
other work Goethes Schauspieler und Musiker, 1 vol. Berlin. 1912.
{Goethe's Actors and Musicians.)
There is nothing in Goethe's life which Bode does not know, but
Bode is not a musician. The same subject, however, has been treated
from the musician's point of view by Hermann Abert, an eminent
writer on music, in his excellent work, Goethe und die Musik (J.
Engelhom's Nachf. Stuttgart, 1922). The principal feature of this
little book is the reconstruction of the musical atmosphere in which
Goethe lived ; the author shows clearly to what extent Goethe agreed
with the ideas of the time on music in general and on the different
forms of music, Lied, opera, and instrumental music, and in what
way his art reacted upon the music of his time, and vice versa.
I must also mention the writings on this subject by Wasielewsky,
Philip Spitta, and Max Friedlaender.
124 Seine Freude am Klange.
125 The actor Genast, in his memoirs, shows him forbidding the
public to laugh at a performance of Ion in 1802, and calling to
order rowdy students of Jena at a performance of Schiller's Rauber
{The Robbers) in 1808. Here is another amusing anecdote, told by
the music historian, Christian Lobe {vide his conversation with
= 231
Goethe, pages 58 and 59 of this book). Lobe was then young,
and very much in love with an actress who was playing in Turandot
at Weimar. He had slipped into a dark corner of the theatre during
the rehearsal, and tried to watch her from behind a column. But as
she was on his side of the stage he could not see her. Lobe came
out from his hiding-place, and from seat to seat worked his way
to the centre of the stalls. He saw his beloved, she saw him, and
the silly young lovers exchanged signs of recognition. Lobe, in his
joy, rose, without thinking, from his seat. Suddenly, from the depth
of a box, thundered the bass voice of His Excellency von Goethe,
"Remove that dirty mongrel from my sight!" ("Schafft mir doch den
Scbweinehund aus den Augen!") Lobe fled, jumping over the
seats, stumbling, falling, in utter confusion and shame, with the
laughter of the actors ringing in his ears. Only long after did he
hear that Goethe's vigorous remark was not addressed to him, but
to the coach and accompanist, Eilenstein, a drunkard, who was
strumming on the piano a fantastic march which had derived its
inspiration from the bottle.
126 Like Beethoven, he composed many of his poems as he walked
and sang, and there is a good reason why a number of them have
the title "The Wanderer." A significant passage in the Wander jahre
("Years of Wandering") of Wilhelm Meister reveals to us the
musical character of his creative process:
"It often happens that a hidden genius whispers a rhythm to
me, so that, as I wander about, I am always moving to it. I hear
faint sounds, too, the accompaniment of a Lied which somehow
pleasantly suggests itself to me." {"Mir scheint oft ein geheimer
Genius etwas Rhythmisches vorzufiustern, so doss ich mich beim
Wandern jedesmal im Takt bewege und zugleich leise Tone zu
vernehmen glaube, wodurch denn irgendein Lied begleitet wird,
doss sich mir auf eine oder die andere Weise gefallig vergegen-
wartigt") III. I.
Thus, it is first the rhythm which forms the framework, then the
melody which clothes it. Finally there is the poem itself. Abert
232 =
correctly states that the rhythm is the soul of the "inner music"
from which Goethe's poems have sprung. "Der Takt kommt aus der
poetischen Stimmung, wie unbewusst" ("The rhythm is the uncon-
scious outcome of the poetical mood") (to Eckermann April 6th,
1829).
127 Bode, op. cit., II, 345.
128 re Meb?e Seele lost sich nach und nach dutch die lieblichen
Tone aus den Banden der Protokolle und Akten" ("Pleasant musical
sounds gradually set my soul free from the bonds of juridical
protocols and acts") (February 22, 1779). After his almost fatal
illness of 1801 his first desire was to hear music.
129 During the Seven Years' War the French were in occupation
of Frankfurt for four years. Their theatrical companies came from
Paris.
130 Gluck's importance for Goethe, as for Herder and Klopstock,
depended not only upon his beautiful and classic construction of a
tragedy set to music with choruses, which called to mind the old
Greek tragedies, but also upon the happy enunciation which he
secured of the music latent in poetical speech. His small collection
of Lieder written to Klopstock's odes and particularly that very
short masterpiece "Die jrilhen Graber" ("The Graves of the
Young") was an unsurpassed model for all the German artists of
the period. He thus showed the poets the way to a Sprachmelodie
("melodic speech"), a melody of the word, a musical poetry. It is
difficult to realize nowadays what a fountain of study these short
odes, so soberly clad in music, were for the greatest writers of that
generation in Germany.
131 On May 6, 1776, while in the mountains near Ilmenau, he
wrote his "Rastlose Liebe" ("Restless Love").
132 A fine letter from Wieland to Gluck, written on June 13,
1776, tells us of his attempts to approach Goethe, who alone was
worthy to write such a work, and the unfortunate circumstances
which prevented his plan from being carried out. ... "I went to
sec him and showed him your letter. I found him next day already
= 233
full of a great scheme on this subject; I could see it taking shape,
and was delighted with it, notwithstanding the gteat difficulties.
But nothing seems impossible to Goethe. I saw how lovingly he
tended it. Give him but a few days of peace and solitude and what
I read in his soul would become a reality. . . . But Fate granted
neither him nor you this consolation. . . . His situation here be-
came continually more and more difficult, and his activity was
distracted in other directions. ... In short, there is now prac-
tically no hope that he will in the near future complete the work
which he began. He certainly did not abandon it of his own free
will. I know that from time to time he is still seriously working at
it; but what can one expect when, on account of his many duties,
he has not a single day he can call his own? However, knowing
this great mortal {den herrlichen Sterblichen) as I do, I feel certain
that he will complete it yet . . ."
133 May 25, 1776.
134 It has been suggested that it was the first sketch of his
Proserpina.
135 I have collected quite a number of documents bearing on this
tragic event in Gluck's life. Among these original letters is one from
"the little Chinese girl" to Abbe Arnaud, which I think is unique,
and also the moving letter from Gluck to Klopstock, written on
May 10, 1776, two weeks after his niece's death.
13G In the grand-ducal library at Weimar there is a magnificent
bust of Gluck, purchased by the grand duke directly from the
sculptor Houdon, in Paris, in 1775.
137 His letters to Kayser, 1785-86, show how thoroughly he had
studied Gluck, his operas, and his Lieder.
138 Diary. May 13, 1780- January 7, 1781.
139 He had them sung by his private choir.
140 He shared the same taste with Herder in Weimar.
141 For the tercentenary of the Reformation, October 31, 1817.
142 To Karl Gottlieb Freudenberg, 1825.
143 We cannot understand, however, why he did not try to col-
234
laborate with him. No doubt on account of his friendship with
Kayser. It was one of the characteristics of this great artist always
to sacrifice art to friendship if the two were in conflict.
144 The auditorium of the theatre had been burnt out in 1774,
shortly before Goethe's arrival (1775). The company was dis-
banded and an entirely fresh start had to be made. It was a thankless
task, especially as far as music was concerned.
145 It is interesting to note that since 1795 Goethe had intended
to write a sequel to the Magic Flute, the value of which he defended
against the criticism of most of his friends. In 1798 Effland en-
couraged him to do it, but Schiller dissuaded him. He published a
fragment of it. As late as 1801 he mentioned it to Zelter as a
musical poem. Abert, who analysed the fragment, thinks that it is
preparatory to the second Faust and considers that of all of Goethe's
poems this is the most suitable for interpretation by music in its most
varied forms, from tragedy in the style of Gluck to the German
ballad opera (Singspiel). The chorus plays an independent part.
Simple prose is mingled with free rhythm in rhyme.
146 Nevertheless, in 1827 he regretted that he could not derive
the same pleasure as before from hearing the Magic Flute.
147 Eckermann, unfortunately, had no one better to suggest than
Rossini, and Goethe, on the other hand, proposed Meyerbeer!
Beethoven's name was not mentioned, even as a regretful after-
thought. Yet we know that to write the music to Faust was one of
Beethoven's ardent desires, and that Goethe's friend Rochlitz had
been asked by the publisher Breitkopf to propose the poem to
Beethoven in 1822.
148 Goethe died on March 22nd.
149 Gluck was given only very rarely, in spite of Goethe's wish.
Iphigenie auf Tauris was performed in 1800, and Armida in 1832.
150 June 24, 1826. "Every day I am fonder of music which ex-
cites (das Aufregende)," he had written forty years previously, in
1787, during his travels in Italy, where the sugary sentimentality
of the Opera Seria bored him.
= 235
i5i November 9, 1829.
152 His pupil, Johann Kasper Vogler, was organist in Weimar for
forty-four years, until 1765.
153 In 1800. I have described this conversation on page 218.
154 Eduard Genast, "Aus Weimars Klassischer und Nachklas-
sischer Zeit" (Weimar's classical and post-classical period).
155 March 11, 21, and April 17, 1828. Soon after these great
performances, Mendelssohn came to spend two weeks in Weimar.
He spoke of them to Goethe and played some excerpts to him.
Goethe was delighted to find that, contrary to what had happened
in the case of Mozart, his taste for Bach's music had not weakened.
He listened to Mendelssohn "with pleasure, interest, and reflection"
(1830).
156 "It almost seems," wrote Zelter, "as if the whole ensemble
were an organ each pipe of which is endowed with intelligence,
energy, and will power, without mannerisms and without being
forced, in any way (Zwang)."
157 Bach's music makes him think of God in the Book of Genesis.
His fine saying is well known: "Ah wenn die ewige Harmonie sich
mit sich selbst unterhielte, wie sicb's etwa in Gottes Busen, kurz
vor der Weltschopfung mochte zugetragen haben" (It is as if
the Eternal Harmony soliloquized, as must have happened in God's
bosom just before the Creation) (Correspondence with Zelter, II,
95. Reclam edition).
158 "Man's self, in so far as he employs his healthy senses, is the
most powerful and the most accurate physical apparatus in existence"
(Letter of 1808 to Zelter, to which I shall refer again later). Goethe
invariably opposes the tenets of mathematicians and physicians which
suggest a dependence on artificial instruments without regard to the
living man, the most perfect of all instruments.
150 Goethe was delighted to hear that Bach's contemporaries
were amazed at the skill and agility of his legs at die organ, a fact
which supported his own theory. Zelter, poking fun at the mania of
236 ^^
the great man, his friend, on this subject, said, "Without feet Bach
would never have reached the height of his genius."
160 n e corresponded with the philologist, Friedrich A. Wolf, on
the subject of Greek music.
161 1808.
162 On the other hand, in 1810 Zelter gave him a lecture on
Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli.
163 1 have already remarked how often excessive scruples of
friendship, much as they were to his honour, harmed him
intellectually.
164 Between 1824 and 1832 he read a number of books and
treatises on music, notably those of Rochlitz on the subject of the
fugue, the origins of opera, on church music from the days of
Orlando Lasso and so on. He read carefully the musical journals,
particularly the Caecilia of Gottfried Weber.
Nor must we forget the importance which he attaches to the
schoolmaster's role in music. In Wilhelm Aleiste/s Years of Wan-
dering (II, 1), music is at the root of all instruction. It is the
central point from which all roads diverge: exercises of the hand,
the ear, the eye, writing, arithmetic, etc.
165 He mentions them in his letters 1829-31.
ice Festschrift zu R. V. Liliencron's 90 Geburtstage.
167 He returned to it in 1831.
168 1808.
169 Compare the definition of the minor in his Prose Thoughts,
Part VII: "The minor mode is the harmony of passionate desire.
The desire which aspires to what is far off but which concentrates
melodiously within itself, produces the minor mode" {"Die
Sehnsucht die nach aussen, in die Feme strebt, sich aber tnelodisch
in sich selbst beschrankt, erzeugt den Minor") (Nachlass).
170 For a solution of this musical puzzle I have resorted to the
kindly erudition of the two undoubted experts on the history of the
songs of the people in France and Germany — M. Julien Tiersot,
the historian of Rougct de Lisle, and Professor Max Friedlaender,
= 237
who has nothing to learn on the subject of the German Volkslied
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The exact information
which they have been good enough to afford me makes Beethoven's
silence still more remarkable.
In an appendix to this book will be found a brief history of the
Marseillaise in Germany, where it became immediately well known,
though its significance was curiously misunderstood.
171 February 19, 1815. This impression clearly echoes that which
Goethe directly received at Mainz twenty-two years before, and
which he recorded in his story of the siege after the French garrison
had marched out. "The most remarkable scene, and the one which
struck all of us, was the appearance of the light cavalry. They ad-
vanced upon us in complete silence; suddenly their band struck up
the Marseillaise. There is something mournful and threatening in
this Te Deum of the Revolution even when it is played in lively
fashion. On this occasion, however, it was played very slowly in
time to their slow pace. The effect was terrible and awe-inspiring"
(from Porchat's French translation).
172 At which Zelter, who had never considered the matter at all,
cried in astonishment, "You and he (Le Neveu de Rameau) under-
stand music better than I."
173 It seems that he heard a piece by Beethoven for the first time
five months later.
174 1831.
175 The strange letter from Bettina to Goethe, about Christmas,
1810, which I translate in an appendix to this book, is further
evidence.
176 Goethe, a year old when Jean Sebastian Bach died, and ten
years old when Handel died, was born the same year as Cimarosa.
He was twenty-five when Jommelli died, forty-two when Mozart
died, and sixty the year of Haydn's death. But he was twenty-seven
years of age when Weber was born, forty-eight when Schubert was
born, and fifty-four in the year of Berlioz's birth.
177 In the Lieder in which the music is written under his dictation,
238 ^^
if one may so express it, he insists that the music should follow the
minutest details in the text, the divisions into verses and strophes,
the punctuation and the declamation. When the poem contains
several strophes he must have the same melody for each; it is the
singer's business to vary the expression. In 1822 again, speaking of
a setting by Tomaschek, of his Kennst du das Land, which he likes,
he expresses his displeasure with Beethoven and Spohr, who have
disregarded his instructions with regard to the return of the melody
with each strophe. Where he has written "Lied," he will not allow
it to be turned into an "Aria."
178 I too have heard Clara Schumann speak of the old Goethe
who raised her higher on her chair, so that her baby hands could
reach the keys. May I not say that I have seen Goethe?
179 This curious passion for libretti persisted till his very last
years. In 1828 he amused himself by rewriting the libretto for
Rossini's Moses. He wanted to rewrite his Tancredi in the form of a
favola boscareccia in the fashion of Poussin. A month before his
death, in February, 1832, he dictated a long essay on the poems of
Jouy, the librettist of Spontini. He was enthusiastic over Handel's
verse, and could not forgive Weber those of Euryanthe and Oberon.
Here Beethoven shared his views ; in the eyes of both the best opera
libretto was that of The Water Carrier of Cherubini.
He would never judge an opera independently of the words. The
words must always be the first consideration.
"I don't understand you, my friends," he said in 1828. "How
can you possibly separate the subject from the music and enjoy one
without regard to the other? I marvel at you. How can the hearing
contrive to appreciate the pleasures of harmony, when the sight,
most powerful of the senses, is tortured by the imbecility of the
subject. ..."
Instead of sight he might well have said reason, and reason is
the subject of the rest of the homily. But as a matter of fact the eye
was, with Goethe, the organ of reason.
He was right. Most musicians possess very poor sight, and still
= 239
less reason. We do not blame them for it, so long as their ears are
long. But there is nothing to compel them to put their music into
operas, that is to say to torture both sight and common sense. I
cordially approve Goethe's sentiments, and Beethoven I know would
have cried, "Bravo."
180 The most curious of these musical works of his early youth is
a Concerto Dramatico composto dal Sigr. Dottore Flamminio, detto
P ami r go Secondo, written at Frankfurt in the autumn of 1772. (It
may be found on pp. 77-82. Vol. Ill, of Der Junge Goethe, Max
Morris edition, 1910, Inselverlag.) This "concerto," the word being
used in the old meaning of "cantata," was composed "for per-
formance in the Gemeinschaft der Heiligen, at Darmstadt." It is a
ludicrous succession of pieces which are given musical titles, with
expression and tempo marks: Tempo giusto C, Allegretto % Arioso,
Allegro con furia, Cantabile, Lamentabile ; ein wenig geschwinder
con speranza, Allegro con spirito, Choral, Capriccio con variazioni
1, 2, 3; Air Francois, Molto andante, Con expressione, and, to end
up, Presto fugato with a double choir imitating in burlesque fashion
the sounds of the instruments: "Dum du, dum du. Dum dim di di
du (bis) Hohu! Hohu! . . .
181 December 29, 1779.
182 January 20, 1780.
183 Abert has analysed these libretti and has made a list of the
many and varied forms of aria, ensemble, and chorus. He shows
that Goethe had a remarkable knowledge of every kind of theatrical
music of his time, French, Italian and German.
184 Meanwhile Goethe heard at Weimar and in Italy (September
3, 1786 — June 18, 1788) a number of Italian opere buffe by Goldoni,
Piccinni, Salieri, and Cimarosa. He drank them in; he revised and
rearranged his old Singspiele in the light of his new experience of
the Italian stage. He even intended to put his Scherz, List und
Rache into Italian. German now seemed to him a barbarische Sprache
to set to music. Ah! had he only known twenty years ago what he
knows today. He would have made a study of Italian so as to write
240 ^^
for the lyric stage. He had another reason for his preference for
Italian, and a very singular one, the need which he felt for the
employment of a foreign language, Italian or Latin, to represent
remarkable events on the stage, heroes in the throes of love, singing
as they struggle and die (Letters of 1786). About this time he set
Kayser to work on the music of Egmont, and wrote for him an
opera the subject of which was taken from the recent story of
Cagliostro, and the affair of the Queen's Necklace. His first sketch
for the opera was in Italian.
185 Based on the old phrase "saltare comoediam," literally, to
"leap," comedy, an expression dating from the lines when come-
dians were jesters (saltatores) and jumped rather than walked.
186 One cannot over-emphasize the importance which Goethe
invariably attached to moral qualities in the artists whose friendship
he sought or accepted, though this has always been denied by his
critics. He persisted in this attitude in spite of the artistic loss which
it involved. There was no question of a reasoned choice in the
matter; it was a vital instinct.
187 Kayser produced in 1777 a collection of Lieder {Gesange mit
Begleitung des Klaviers), and Goethe also had his friend's Lieder
published in several volumes. Bode reproduces some examples in his
book on Goethe and music. These Lieder display a certain lightness
of touch, and their expression is apt and simple. The score of
Scherz, List, und Rache is kept at the Goethe National Museum
at Weimar. Ferdinand Hiller and Max Friedlaender have spoken
favourably of it.
188 At the end of 1789 another project of his, the result of this
same devotion to Gluck, which Reichardt shared with him, was a
tragedy set to music with choruses in the old classical style, Die
Danaiden. Goethe was working on this idea during the following
ten years.
189 w e already find in the production of his Proserpina, in 1815,
the three Norns, the three Parcas (comp. Genast, p. 134).
1!, ° During the first period of his direction of the Weimar theatre
= 241
he got Reichardt to write the music for his ballad operas Erwin,
Claudine, and Jery. He had his Cagliostro played as a comedy in
1791 under the title of Der Grosskophta; he would have made an
opera of it had not he lost all hope of seeing it put on the stage.
We may add that he had converted his theatre at Weimar into a
little model stage for operetta, and produced the Italian intermezzi
(short musical plays). He brought with him from Italy the text of
twenty-three opere bujfe by Cimarosa, Anfossi, and others, and
translated several of them.
191 All the fault seems to have been Schiller's ; he was quick-
tempered and very easily upset. He persuaded Goethe into an
insulting attack on Reichardt in Die Xenien. Reichardt never lost
his fine dignity, never for a moment considered that these affronts
released him from the obligations of faithful service which he
owed to the genius and the person of Goethe.
192 In 1820 again Goethe wrote to Zelter, "I feel at once the
identity of your compositions with my Lieder. The music is simply
a lifting force, like the gas in a balloon. With other composers I
have always to examine the music to see what view they have taken
of the Lied and how they have dealt with it."
To know Zelter's Lieder is therefore a matter which should interest
us deeply: through them we may realize exactly the feelings of
Goethe. For this reason I advise the reading of the fine Lied of the
Harpist in With elm Meister, "Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergiebt."
It is a model of noble, simple and manly emotion.
193 There are few stories more moving than the passing, almost
at the same time, of the two friends. Goethe died on March 22nd.
Zelter, who had written him yet another letter on that very day,
lost in a moment all his powers and joy of life. He aged ten years
in a single day. With trembling lips he said, "I have lost my dearest
friend on earth" ("Ich habe mein Liebstes auf Erden verloren").
Again he said, "I am like a widow who has lost her man, her lord,
the provider of her substance." Early in May he felt seriously ill.
Going to his bedroom, he bowed his head gravely before Goethe's
242 =
bust, and said, "Your Excellency naturally took precedence of me,
but now I follow you" ("Excellenz halten natiirlich den Vortritt,
aber ich folge bald nacb"). He took to his bed, and died on May
15 th. Who shall say now that Goethe could not love and inspire
love?
194 The collection of Goethe's Lieder, composed by Zelter, was
published in 1810-12 under the title Samtliche Lieder, Balladen,
und Romanzen in four volumes. Reichardt preceded Zelter with his
collection of Goethe's Lieder in four parts (1809).
195 p r i nC e Radziwill had been working at it since 1810. His Faust,
fragments of which Goethe heard in 1811, was given in part (two
big scenes) in May, 1819, before the court in a Berlin palace; a
prince played Mephisto. The score was published in 1834-35 and
the opera was performed over a period of twenty years. Reichardt's
collection of Goethe's Lieder (1809) included, among some re-
markable Deklamationsstucke, a fragment of Faust, part of the
dialogue between Faust and Marguerite in the garden.
Even quicker was Bettina, who, as early as January, 1808, was
"drinking in" the Faust compositions. She wrote Marguerite's prayer,
"Ach neige, du Schmerzensreiche."
196 Fourteen years later (1828-29) Eberwein, at long last, un-
derstood. To celebrate Goethe's eightieth birthday he arranged a
performance of a Faust with music; this was given from time to
time up to 1870, and later. Bode quotes several fragments in his
second volume, pp. 294-307. They have no great value.
197 It is to be observed that he had just declined to write a
Samson for Zelter. It was a wrathful refusal. He had no use, he
said, for Jews on the stage, particularly for Samson with "the over-
whelming and bestial passion of an immensely powerful God-gifted
hero for the most accursed woman's flesh that the earth ever knew"
("die ganz bestialische Leidenschaft eines iiberkraftigen, gottbe-
gabten Helden zu dem verfiuchtesten Luder das die Erde tragt").
He knew nothing at that time of Handel's masterly picture of the
sorceress.
= 243
i9s There were two other projects of the same period — a fragment
of dialogue with chorus, Der Lowenstuhl (1814), which has a
romantic colouring, and a Persian subject which the atmosphere of
the Divan suggested to him, Feradeddin and Kolaila (1816).
199 I have already noted that from October, 1808, Beethoven was
making a vain search for some one to adapt Faust for the stage.
200 When his faithful comedian, Genast, took leave of him shortly
before Goethe himself was compelled to resign, the latter sent him
these two lines written on a drawing:
"Zur Erinnrung triiber Tage
Voll Bemuhen, voller Plage"
("In memory of troublous days, days of sorrow, days of anguish.")
201 January 29, 1827.
Eckermann seems to have found it odd that a piece "should
begin as a tragedy and finish as an opera." Goethe replied: "Yes,
it is so. But such is my will."
202 N.B. He was eighty years old (1829).
203 Here we must recall the remarkable spectacle of the aged
dreamer as he appeared, ten days before his death, to Bettina's
young son, "He now seems to belong to another world rather than
to this; what passes here below is utterly lost to him in the visions
of his imagination." (See my essay on Bettina in this book.)
204 Many musicians have tried their hand. But not one, not even
Schumann, who attempted the final scene in Faust (in heaven),
had the twofold genius of north and south upon which Goethe
insisted and which he himself possessed.
205 Lehrjahre, IV. 2.
206 I might have added "choruses." One of the questions which
occupied him most was that of the chorus in tragedy. The chorus
in Greek tragedy had a powerful attraction for him as it had in the
compositions of Handel and Gluck, who seemed to him, rightly
as we think, the heirs of the great choral art of antiquity. He ex-
perimented with various possibilities in his poems set to music,
244
and especially in the second Faust. The main problem was the
practical realization, upon the stage, of these ideas. The Bride of
Messina, at the Weimar Theatre, opened a field of experiment.
Schiller had been content with the chorus in unison. The effect was
pitiful; it was uninspired and confusing. Goethe, in the third act,
divided the singers into two choruses, and used solos, duets, trios,
and alternating choruses, with crescendos and decrescendos, with
due regard to the registers of the different voices. (In the
memoirs of Genast will be found some notes on his ingenious
arrangements.)
207 "Musik war sie zu nennen", said Genast of the form of
declamation on which he insisted. ("His declamation could have
been described as music")
208 jj e was accused of "playing chess with his actors."
209 To all who are interested in the theatre I commend the recol-
lections of Genast, "Aus Weimars klassischer und nachklassischer
Zeit. Erinnerungen eines alten Schauspielers."
210 I have already emphasized the difference in this matter be-
tween Goethe and Schiller. The latter was too fond of speech to
music — that is, "melodrama." Goethe proclaimed the musical inde-
pendence of the spoken word in poetry; with him this is an inde-
pendent form of music with an existence of its own; it possesses
within itself both orchestra and song.
211 Goethe's declamation of poetry was in fact remarkable for
light and shade. Pastor Ewald von Offenbach wrote in 1799: "He
could express anything he wished without raising or lowering his
pitch beyond a few tones. This declamation was graded in infinitely
small intervals. Between C and D it would have been possible to
distinguish perhaps as many as sixteen fractional tones which could
not have been expressed in musical notation. The declamation was
characterized by the attack or entry, the melody, the transition into
another melody, and the return to the tone on which it had begun."
This sounds like a description of the first movement of a sonata of
the time.
= 245
But with age he lost this art or sacrificed it voluntarily to the
"delight in sonority" {seine Freude am Klange). When he recited
he was too fond of letting his fine bass voice resound and his pro-
duction was "over-emphasized." This often met with criticism. He
was better liked in his reading of comic passages, and Genast avers
— who could have imagined it? — that he made an inimitable Falstaff.
However, in conversation he always maintained a "soft and measured
tone" (leise und gemessen) . But he had too much vigour and force,
not to say brutality, in his make-up. His expression and his acting
were at times so violent that at a rehearsal of King John the little
actress who played opposite him — fainted (Genast).
21 - Music in Goethe's poetry is a subject so vast and so profound
that a whole book might be devoted to it. Perhaps some day I shall
return to the matter. H. Abert in his little book has given it a short
but effective chapter, "Das Musikalische in Goethes Lyrik." He
shows how powerful was the influence in this direction which
Herder excercised on the young Goethe at Strasbourg and how
Goethe's genius forthwith evoked the melody which lay hidden in
the heart of his poetic emotion. He calls attention to his free rhythm
in verse and in prose (Werther), a stream of "infinite melody", as
it were ; to his passages impregnated with actual music, to his great
lyrical monologues in musical drama with their recitativi accom-
pagnati, their arias, and their torrential rhythm, as in the Wanderers
Sturmlied, Schwager Kronos, and Prometheus. Then, under Italian
influence, Goethe passes from the free recitative to the arioso.
Iphigenia marks the pinnacle of the watershed, the point of per-
fection, where Dionysus, the spirit of impulsive flight, is tamed to
harmony by the master hand of Apollo. On the further slope of
life's mountain top, music, like a stream, returns to its river bed. The
torrent subsides, the stream ripples slowly, restrained by the banks
which ordered will and understanding have ordained; until, in the
Wanderjahre, all that is left is a distant murmur, faintly echoed
from the mind which encloses it as with a rampart.
213 To this scrutiny we owe the two important publications of
246 ^=
Rheinhold Steig and Fritz Bergemann: Bettinas Leben und Brief -
wechsel mit Goethe, 1921 and 1927.
214 But in the family papers sold last year Maximiliana gave the
incorrect date 1788 for the birth of Bettina. This mistake of three
years, which has been unjustly attributed to Bettina, resulted in her
sincere belief that she was nineteen and not twenty-two years old
when she first met Goethe. . . . May we say that the probable
effect of this illusion was that she was always younger than her age?
215 "Mein erstes Lesen deiner Bucher! ich verstand sie nicht."
"My first reading of your books. I didn't understand them" (Letter
from Bettina to Goethe).
216 She has not only sealed, as it were, with the world "child,"
the correspondence with Goethe which she published, Briefwechsel
Goethes mit einem Kinde. She used it also in her first letters, "Euer
Kind, Dein Herz und gut Madchen." Later, in the course of her
spiritual affection for Schleiermacher, she called herself his "child"
also, and begged for his fatherly love. In Bettina's soul, in all purity
of heart, the idea of a father is always mingled with her greatest
loves.
217 She reminded Goethe of this glorious moment in her letter
of July 30, 1808: "When at last I found you — was it a dream? —
Yes, as I write it seems a wonderful dream. My head rested upon
your shoulder, I slept for a few minutes for the first time after
four or five sleepless nights. . . ."
218 A letter from Clemens Brentano to Achim von Arnim, in
July, 1807, gives a most joyous account of the visit. Clemens saw
the ring, a fine antique, set with the representation of a woman
veiling herself. He had no idea, at that time, of putting a bad con-
struction on his sister's relations with the old poet. He was more
inclined to congratulate her. But twenty-five years later Clemens,
then an old man himself, and a bigot also, was alarmed at the idea
of Bettina publishing to the whole of Europe the story of her
"shamelessness." Lujo Brentano recently published {"Der jugend-
liche und der gealterte Clemens Brentano fiber Bettina und Goethe."
= 247
Sonderabdruck aus dem ]ahrbuch des freien Deutschen Hochstijts.
Frankfurt, 1929) the lettet of horrified prudery which he wrote
June 17, 1834, to his sister, after reading the proofs of the first
pages of "Goethe's Letters to a Child." The tone of the letter displays
an unconscious hypocrisy which would be disgusting if it were not
absurd. He deplores that every man in Europe is to be told that
Bettina cannot sit in well-brought up fashion on a sofa, and that,
most improperly, she sat on the knees of a man who had not the
decency to respect the good name of a poor foolish girl. . . . The
monument to Goethe which she is having put up reminds one of
the pyramids which cost Rhodopis her honour. What is to happen
to her children? Her sons run the risk of insults leading to duels.
Her daughters may be depraved as the result of the incident or be
led to scorn their mother. . . . This man, righteous to the point
of sanctity, imposes on his sister this act of penitence, that she
should tear from the volume the shameless page and destroy it. . . .
"Through the reading of such pages are worthy souls made to
stumble. ..." And he begged her for the future to send him all
the drafts for revision before having them printed.
Bettina replied in trenchant fashion, with a disdainful hauteur
but in an affectionate tone. She has nothing to hide. What is there
to hide? She acted in all innocence, and it was the happiest hour
of her life; everything she has been, everything she has done since,
she owes to the ecstasy of that moment, the "ersten erquickenden
paradiesischen Schlaf (the first, refreshing, heavenly sleep)." . . .
What right have others to claim control over her? In all the diffi-
cult trials of life they left her alone ; she has had no one to depend
upon and no one troubled himself about her. Who now gives them
the right to assume the role of guardians of morality? As for her
children, she has no cause for concern. If they were to discover
any evil in an affair so simple and innocent, they would not be her
children; she would refuse to recognize them. Thank God, she
means to preserve them from such bigotry and hypocrisy. And she
calls her brother an "old nightcap" (alte Schlaf mutze) .
248 ^=
Clemens, much annoyed, replied in the "style of Chanaan."* He
condoled, in hypocritical terms, with his "poor" sister, and managed
very cleverly to insert in his letter the most offensive allusions under
the cloak of kindness. After having compared her to a naked
Phryne, he cruelly reminded her of Arnim, "the noble father whom
she had forgotten," and the sorrow which the children must feel.
Then came disparaging remarks on Goethe, with whom Germany
will now have nothing to do; nobody buys his works, and in
fact, "the enthusiasm for him has never been genuine." Then he
referred again to "the poor good Arnim" . . . and "that poor,
silly, godless Bettina. ..."
But Bettina refuted vehemently the allusion to her "poverty,"
which was all too real, and to the "pity" which the bigoted brother
offered her, with the poisoned flowers of his eloquence. We see her
as she stands, proudly aloof, with her Goethe and her God.
219 "You are my daughter. May my son be a brother to you. . . .
I am sure that he loves you."
220 The "thou" made its first timid appearance at the end of the
letter of October 6, 1807, to which I have already referred. It is
found at the end where the "thou" and the "you" are mixed up in
childish fashion: "Euer Kind, Dein Herz und gut Madchen, das
den Gothe gar zu lieb, allein ilber alles lieb hat, und sich mit seinem
Andenken uber alles trosten kann" ("Your child, thy heart, thy
little girl who loves Goethe very, very much, loves him only and
loves him above all else and whose memory can console her in
everything"). But the "thou" only appears regularly with the letters
of December, 1807.
221 We find it for the first time on February 22, 1809.
222 "The day when I left you, with a kiss — it was not the kiss
which parted us! — I stayed for a whole hour alone in the next room,
the room with the piano, and sat on the floor in a corner. . . . You
were there, too, quite near me and you never knew it. ... I
* Translator^ Note. — Chanaan, the son of Shem, cursed by Noah.
E249
laughed and cried at the same time. ..." (beginning of January,
1808).
-~ 3 A month before she had told him of Arnim's love for
her. . . . "Poor" Arnim (I find myself writing like her brother
Clemens! . . . )
224 She had Goethe's son with her at Frankfurt in April, 1808,
and treated him tenderly.
225 November 3, 1809-
226 "I cannot fight against you, dear Bettina. You are the best of
all my friends, in what you write, in your acts of kindness, in your
gifts, and in the love and delight which you bring me. I cannot,
therefore, do otherwise than abandon myself to the joy which is
mine, and give you in return all my love, even if I must do so in
silence."
227 She had, however, written to him in March or April (see her
letter of July 6th).
228 And, on October 25 th of the same year, "all your dear pages,
which reached me one after the other." Not one of them has come
down to us.
229 Auction Catalogue 148. Karl Ernst Henrici, Berlin. (February
27-28, 1929.) No. 42, p. 16.
230 1 am not referring to the other sacrifice, the one which
Bettina made. She had intended to incorporate these beautiful
reminiscences in a book which she would write. But to her loving
heart it seemed only a small gift.
231 October 18, 1810.
232 November 4, 1810.
233 "\Y/h at would Goethe have thought, if he could have looked
over Bettina's shoulder as she wrote down her convictions, and if he
could have read the draft (probably dating from 1826) in which
she compared herself to "a spider weaving her net round Goethe,
ensnaring him softly, softly. . . ." "And he will not be able to
escape!" (Auction Catalogue 148. K. E. Henrici.)
234 Letter to Moritz Carriere. March 26, 1849.
250 ^^
235 In Goethes Briefivechsel mit einem Kinde (1835 Edition),
and the book of 1927 by Fritz Bergemann which has been quoted
(p. 206) there is a drawing of Bettina's suggested monument. It is
in the neo-antique style of Thorwaldsen, which Goethe liked — only
too much, and its academic grandeur possesses no feature which
would appeal to us were it not for a little detail, a very womanly
one, which sheds a glow of love on the cold marble: it is the little
Psyche, symbolizing Bettina in the monument, who touches with
her fingers the strings of the huge lyre of the impassive giant and
puts her little bare foot on the bare foot of Goethe.
236 This was a last profession of faith in individualism: "Let
everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole city will
be clean (Ein jeder kehre vor seiner Thiir — und rein ist jedes
Stadtquartier) ."
237 The young man had been deeply moved by his appearance.
"He now seems to belong to another world rather than to this;
what passes here below (das Irdische) is utterly lost to him in
the visions of his imagination."
238 All the passages which I have quoted from her letters in
these essays are taken from the authentic correspondence which has
been compared with the originals.
239 Max Friedlaender published a selection of her compositions as
a supplement to Goethes Briefivechsel mit einem Kinde, Propylaen
Verlag, 1920.
Among the manuscripts sold in 1929 was a Kompositionsbuch
of about a hundred pages, containing her compositions to Lieder by
Goethe, Arnim, and JHolderlin, whose genius she was one of the
first to recognize. In this book she also wrote some of her thoughts,
among others, "On the importance of the pause in music." She had
studied counterpoint and fugue. Music holds an important place
in her correspondence which would be worth a special study, for
Bettina's intuitions, though she groped in the dark, delve deeply
at times. At the end of this essay I am giving the translation of
= 251
.i strange letter to Goethe, which is, as it were, a monologue on
music.
240 The Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and the Prince of
Wurtemberg.
•mi "\v/ e d n0 t i et flies defile pure gold," he wrote to her.
MS "The king knows that I share your contempt for the censor-
ship and your aversion to it." Humboldt's letter to Bettina. Auction
Catalogue 148. Henrici No. 81.
243 He was released, became Minister of Finance during the
Swabian revolution, and was later again sentenced to death.
244 In 1848 we find him again as one of the leaders of the new
Polish revolution.
245 Auction Catalogue 148. Henrici No. 16.
240 It often happened that these men, whose lives she had saved,
did not inspire her sympathy at all. One of them was Kinkel. In
one of her letters (1849) she expresses her disgust for him in
pitiless terms; she speaks of his boastfulness, his presumption, his
foolish vanity, and his noisiness. . . . "Truly, I have not done it
for his sake! I did it because I had to do it. I did it for my own
sake. But as a result, everyone has thrown stones at me" (Ibid.
No. 111).
247 Ibid. No. 119.
248 The collection of letters sold included forty-two written to the
Hungarian poet Kertbeny. They discuss ardently the struggles for
Hungarian independence. Kertbeny sent her, in 1849, a flower
plucked just before his execution by a man condemned to death.
249 Memoirs of Mme. Irene Forbes-Mosse.
250 Her only personal meeting with King Friedrich William IV
appears to have been in April, 1845, a long audience at the Mon-
bijou palace on the subject of her proteges.
251 Comp. Goethe the Musician, p. 126.
252 The following seems still more incredible. Herklots, a musician
well known in northern Germany, in 1798 adapted the melody of
the Marseillaise to a song in honour of the king of Prussia. I am
252 ^=
indebted to Professor Max Friedlaender for reminding me of this
fact which Reichardt mentioned.
253 Comp. Goethe the musician, p. 126.
254 It was in 1830 that there appeared in northern Germany a
Liederbuch fur deutsche Krieger und deutsches Volk by the school
master Carl Weitershausen, who is careful to observe that in one of
the songs of victory the melody of the Marseillaise seems to have
been borrowed (noted by Max Friedlaender).
255 See p. 28 of "Goethe and Beethoven" I, and p. 181 of the
essay on Bettina.
The letter written to Goethe is dated from Berlin, Christmas,
1810 (pp. 333-334 of Bettinas Leben und Briefwechsel mit Goethe,
published by Fritz Bergemann, 1927, Insel-Verlag) .
It is not without hesitation that I hazard a free translation of this
extraordinary monologue; it is as if one witnessed, in the dead
watches of the night, the birth of a fevered strain of thought. The
German historians and philologists themselves, who have made a
study of Bettina' s writings, admit their doubt as to the meaning of
certain phrases. Fortunately the paraphrase which Bettina made in
her Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde in 1835 clears up
several passages. Dare I maintain that the meaning of the letter,
speaking generally, seems clear to me? The interest which I take
in it encourages me to hope that many of my readers who are
students of Beethoven will also find it clear. Obscured by the
awkward and tentative expressions, there is to be found a lively
and profound musical intuition ; we may glean from Bettina a better
understanding of Beethoven's soul than she herself possessed.
I have placed in brackets the passages taken from Bettina's para-
phrase of 1835.
250 when Bettina uses the word "magic" she means "the outcome
of genius."
257 ["Zelter, among others, will never allow anything to pass
which he does not fully understand."]
= 253
258 Comp. Goethe's words to Humboldt, "Music is purely and
simply irrational {die rente Unvernunft) : the written word is con-
cerned with reason and with nothing else."
259 "A u f die einzelnen Werkzeuge {Alenschen) ("on isolated
instruments, that is, men") I interpret this as the rhythmic action
and reaction which take place between the genius and the human
race, one depending upon the other. Genius must have a substance
in which to implant life.
260 "\y je das Herz gebaut ist" ("according to the structure of
each heart"). My reading of the paragraph is this. In the ages
which are past music submitted to definite intellectual rules. Now-
adays the subjectivity of the sentiment reigns supreme and genius
is the master. But who can claim that these obscure forces will
always be directed to the noblest end?
26i ^'Zelter muss vermeiden, dem Beethoven gegenuberzustehen."~\
("Zelter must be careful not to fall foul of Beethoven").
™"Wie em Holzbock."
263 Literally "wenn er dies will."
264 "Wenn er sich nicht loss macht von den Handiverkern."
265 "Uhrwerk." In Bettina's famous letter of July 1810, where
she spoke for the first time to Goethe of Beethoven, this is the
word which she employs to describe the whole of human effort as
opposed to the one man Beethoven, the only untrammelled creator.
"Just as the mechanism of a clock {Uhrwerk) centres upon an axis,
so does every form of human activity centre upon him. He alone of
himself brings to birth." . . . Comp. p. 18.
266 Let us make a resume of this monologue which is charged
with Beethoven's feeling, and with revolt against the school of
thought which held him in contempt.
Bettina pleads the cause of the irrational in art, and, above all,
in music. She sets the genius who expresses freely the forces within
him against the cold reasoners, the scholars who employ borrowed
formulas. Music, if it would live, must release itself from the
mechanical spirit, must discover the freedom of the will, the springs
254 =
of the vital forces. There is but one road by which it may be
reached — meditation, concentration, inspiration. Beethoven has re-
vealed to her the direct path.
We should compare these ideas with those which her visit to
Beethoven inspired during the previous spring according to the
letters which I quoted early in my first essay. ("Goethe and
Beethoven" Chapter I.) It is Beethoven's harvest; he himself was
the sower.
Date
Due
OCT S
M.
I
'b'OZ
MAY n 9 '5
9
dov
NOV 3 U h
1
TTB27 '62
UkW * '
KAR 2 8 1
976
sr? s
078
Library Bureau Cat. no. 1137
3 5002 00393 8458
Rolland. Rom.nn
Goethe and Beethoven,
ML 410 . B4 R723
Rolland, Remain, 1866
Goethe and Beethoven
211867